$75,000 a Record Gift for Yale? Here's How: Yale University will celebrate largest class gift in its history this week when it credits class of 1954 with contribution of more than $110 million; $90 million of total comes from unusual fund-raising exercise born 25 years ago, out of $74,000 in seed money and frustration with university's financial management; in 1979, Richard Gilder and group of classmates pooled their donations and entrusted them to professional money manager with plan to turn principal and interest earned over to Yale at their 50th reunion.