Too Much Glue Never Dries: Donor Restrictions and the Buck Trust

Too much glue never dries. The children’s story Too Much Glue follows the adventure of a young schoolboy named Matty.[1] Matty, as one might imagine, loves glue and this love leads him to being glued to his desk at the end of the school day. Matty’s schoolmates and various school employees try various measures to release him from the glue’s grip, but because too much glue never dries, their rescue attempts become part of the problem and worsen Matty’s predicament.

Too Much Glue: Beryl Buck’s Gift

Beryl Buck unintentionally gave too much glue to the San Francisco Foundation. Who would of thought such a thing was possible? Mrs. Buck grew up in rural Minnesota before moving to the Bay Area.[2] She married Dr. William Buck in 1914. Buck’s father was a successful land speculator in southern California. His two most successful investments included a parcel of land in northern Los Angeles County and some hills property further south. The northern property later became known as Beverly Hills. The southern hill property was later discovered to be an oil field.

Mrs. Buck died with no heirs in 1975. In her will, she left her inherited fortune to be “used for exclusively nonprofit charitable, religious or educational purposes in providing care for the needy in Marin County, California, and for other nonprofit charitable, religious or educational purposes in that county." A Marin County probate court appointed the San Francisco Foundation as administrator of the funds in 1980 after several years of proceedings.

When Mrs. Buck died in 1975, her estate was worth $10 million. As the estate worked its way through probate, the Shell Oil Co. purchased the Belridge Oil Reserves from her father-in-law’s original investment for $3,665 per share. Overnight, the Buck fortune ballooned to more than $260 million and through investment and appreciation was eventually worth more than $400 million.

Passing the Buck: The San Francisco Foundation’s Request to Grow Beyond Marin County

Marin County, which had a population of 50,000 in 1985, is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. The affluence of Marin County contrasted deeply with the intended impact of Beryl Buck’s gift. It has been said that the county has more hot tubs than people in need.

The San Francisco Foundation drew the ire of the San Francisco press for the largess of the Buck gift. The Foundation itself started exploring new ideas for the Fund and looking for ways to extend its geographic reach. In June 1986, the then-director of the Buck Trust Fund within the San Francisco Foundation stated,“[c]ould we in conscience see the unmet needs of residents in the other counties we serve, in contrast to their better-off neighbors in Marin, and not ask . . . whether a broader distribution of some of the Buck funds was right and just?”[3]

On a Sunday morning breakfast of local leaders in 1984, just four years after the Foundation was appointed guardian of the Buck trust, the San Francisco Foundation surprised attendees by announcing that it was planning to approach a court to break the geographic requirements of the trust. In its application, the San Francisco Foundation suggested that Mrs. Buck’s gift could have a deeper impact if the geographic scope were broadened.

The San Francisco Foundation sought to amend the geographic restrictions of the trust using the cy pres doctrine, which allows charities, with court approval, to alter trust restrictions if they become impossible or impractical to achieve. The Foundation argued that the size of the trust corpus and the relative affluence of Marin County made the trust impractical, and that the funds would be put to better use if the geographic scope were broadened.

The San Francisco Foundation failed in its application. The probate court found that Mrs. Buck’s gift could be spent entirely within Marin County and that the geographic imposition was a necessary condition of the gift. The court did broaden the gift, though, to major projects in Marin County, after concluding that the intent of Mrs. Buck was to benefit Marin County more broadly, rather than just the most-needy of the county.

Additionally, the San Francisco Foundation lost more than just its petition to the probate court. Following the final judgment of the probate court, several Marin County stakeholders sought to have the San Francisco Foundation as trustee of the Buck trust. In a settlement, the Foundation agreed to resign as trustee and shift control to the Marin County Foundation. [4]

Hindsight 20/20: What Can Your Charity Do to Prevent the Challenges from the Buck Trust?

Ultimately, the California court concluded that the original intent of Mrs. Buck’s gift was to support initiatives in Marin County. The geographic limits meant that even though Mrs. Buck’s funds may have had greater reach and a deeper impact in the wider Bay Area, where homelessness and support of the needy is more prevalent an issue, the impact cannot deviate from the intent of the gift.

The Buck trust case further illustrates the importance of discussing and documenting a donor’s intent. If there was sufficient evidence that Mrs. Buck’s ultimate goal was to support the needy and not just Marin County, the San Francisco Foundation may have prevailed in its application.

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[1] Jason Lefebvre, Too Much Glue (2014). [2] Ruth Marcus, The Battle of the Bequest, Wash. Post, May 20, 1986. [3] Douglas Bartholomew, The Battle for the Buck: It was Called the Super Bowl of Probate. For Nearly Three Years, Dozens of Lawyers Fought a Bitter, Expensive Contest to Decide the Fate of an Oil Heress’s Estate. All in the Name of Charity, L.A.Times, Dec. 21, 1986. [4] Estate of Buck, 35 Cal.Rptr.2d 442 (1994).