Trustee’s Planned Gift Caps Decades of Giving to Alma Mater

To this day, Warren ’73 and Aimee Hirschhorn can remember the stories.

They were listening to students discuss the vital role scholarships played in their lives during Rider’s annual Scholarship Luncheon, an event that connects scholarship recipients with the donors who make them possible.

“Some of the students were coming from nothing, just like my grandparents,” Aimee says. “When I started listening to students talk about the difference the scholarships made in their lives, I saw that they needed a chance just as much as my kids and everyone else.”

The couple have been giving to Rider for 34 consecutive years.

In 2014, they created the Warren I. Hirschhorn ’73 Business Scholarship to support high-achieving business students with excellent leadership skills. It was endowed in 2020. Now they have irrevocably pledged $250,000 through a planned gift, with half designated for additional scholarship support and the remaining for unrestricted use, meaning it can be allocated to any area of need throughout the University.

“In today’s world, being philanthropic to causes you care about is more important than ever,” says Warren. “The world changed with the pandemic. Giving during these hard times is doubly important as when times are good. That’s part of why we made this additional gift.”

A retired finance professional and current member of Rider’s Board of Trustees, Warren earned a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in finance from Rider, and he credits his education with providing him the foundation upon which he built a successful career. The Hirschhorn’s planned gift, which is a contribution to a charitable organization usually through a will or bequest, is one of the many ways they give back to Rider and help support the next generation of strivers.

“We’re dedicated to the students who could not complete their education and achieve their dreams without philanthropic support,” says Warren, whose family’s blue-collar roots help him identify with students from humble backgrounds. His father drove a truck for Entenmann’s and his mother worked in a high school. As loving and supportive as they were of their son, Warren says he lacked parental guidance and insight when it came to navigating college and his early career, a similar scenario that many of today’s first-generation college students face.

Warren’s finance education began early. His interest in the subject was first piqued as a youngster in the 1960s during conversations with his grandfather, who owned a grocery store and, according to Warren’s recollections, “was a pretty good investor too.” The pair talked about how the stock market worked, how companies raised money and other fundamentals of finance.

Warren chose Rider based on its ideal distance from his Long Island home (not too close, not too far) and its reputation and roots in business. As a first-year student, he settled into the same residence hall, Switlik, he would call home during his four years of study at Rider. Young for his class, he cites immaturity as a roadblock to initially achieving his potential, but through perseverance and faculty support, he graduated and immediately landed a job at Chase Manhattan Bank.

In retrospect, Warren says, “I probably took the wrong job.” But that didn’t become clear for almost two decades when he left banking to work in valuation, after he had earned a Master of Business Administration from Adelphi University. Moving into the new field freed him from the rote responsibilities of banking and tapped into his creativity.

Embracing the new field changed his life, he says. “I was working in a field that I was good at, comfortable with and could grow. It allowed me to use my previous experience, spread my wings and be entrepreneurial.”

The flourishing of his career positioned the Hirschhorns to steadily increase their charitable giving. Today, they are focused on narrowing the number of charities and organizations they financially support to increase the significance of their giving.

“We are at a stage in life where we can make decisions that are more impactful,” Warren says, “and we’re proud to support Rider.”

Your Gift Will Change Lives

Like the Hirschhorns, you can change the lives of deserving students at Rider University through a gift in your estate plan. Contact Ryan W. Baumuller at 609-896-5233 or rbaumuller@rider.edu today, at no obligation, to learn more.