Hodson Trust, Hood College's largest benefactor, to dissolve
Dec. 21—The Hodson Trust, Hood College's largest benefactor, is dissolving, the college announced this week.
The trust, which has given to Hood regularly for nearly nine decades, has granted about $16 million to the school in the last five years alone.
It was settled in 1920 by the family of Col. Clarence Hodson, who grew up in Maryland.
Hodson founded Beneficial Corporation, which grew into one of the largest consumer finance companies in the U.S. before it was acquired by Household International Inc. in 1998.
For decades, The Hodson Trust has distributed grants among four Maryland higher education institutions: Hood, Washington and St. John's colleges and Johns Hopkins University.
In a 2004 interview with The Washington Post, Finn Caspersen, then chairman of the trust, was asked why Hodson hadn't decided to spread the money out across more schools.
"The founder of the trust for some reason took a liking to these schools," Caspersen answered.
Throughout his career, Hodson aimed to "make small loans available to working-class Americans at affordable interest rates," Caspersen told the Post.
The Hodson Trust's first gift to Hood was a $9,961 grant in 1936, college spokesperson Mason Cavalier wrote in a text message Tuesday.
Cavalier could not provide the total amount of money Hood received from the trust over the past 86 years. He also said he didn't know why the trust was dissolving.
A call to the number listed on the trust's website was not returned Tuesday.
A notice on the site says that "by its terms, The Hodson Trust terminates on November 19, 2022."
The trust's name is all over Hood's Frederick campus. There's the Hodson Outdoor Theater, the Hodson Science and Technology Center, the Hodson Gallery in the Tatem Arts Center, and the Beneficial-Hodson Library and Information Technology Center.
On Monday, Hood announced it had received its final annual gift from the trust: a $2.3 million endowment to support renovations and an expansion at the Hodson Science and Technology Center.
At the end of a news release detailing the gift, officials wrote that the college "will receive a significant lump-sum" from the trust's remaining assets when it is dissolved in 2023.
It's unclear what that amount will be or when the college will receive it, Cavalier said, but the college thought it was important to mention the dissolution in its release.
"We wanted to include it so it wasn't a huge shock," Cavalier said Monday. "It's something that's coming."
