How one family's bipolar disorder experience led to more than $1 billion
for the Broad Institute
[March 31, 2026]
By JAMES POLLARD
NEW YORK (AP) — Jon Stanley considers himself fortunate among bipolar
disorder patients. He eventually responded to the right drug cocktail
after self-described “full-brained mania” almost 40 years ago left him
naked in a New York City deli, convinced electricity coursed through the
floor.
Others face a longer road to medication. Severe mental health care like
his was “more art than science,” the retired lawyer remembered being
told back then. Doctors would rotate through medicines to “see if
anything stuck.” The experience inspired his late parents, Ted and Vada
Stanley, to donate hundreds of millions of dollars toward research into
treatments for bipolar and schizophrenia during their lifetimes.
Now, their philanthropic legacy continues with a renewed gift for a
biomedical collaborative working to understand such diseases and
identify therapies. The Stanley Family Foundation announced another $280
million for the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at Broad
Institute earlier this month, bringing its total contributions to the
Massachusetts-based nonprofit over $1 billion.
The dedication reflects both their belief in its unique team-based
approach and Jon’s fidelity to his billionaire retailer father’s desired
application of the wealth he amassed selling collectibles.
“He said he wanted his ‘Manhattan Project,’” Jon recalled. “And so, the
only question was: who was gonna be Oppenheimer?”
The Broad Institute launched in 2004 to tackle disease research with the
combined forces of faculty from MIT, Harvard and other scientists. It
has attracted prominent philanthropists including founding donors Eli
and Edythe Broad as well as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife,
Wendy.
The Stanleys' giving has gone almost exclusively to the Broad Institute
— a staggering commitment to one recipient. This latest unanticipated
gift funds another seven years of its work to determine how these
illnesses develop. By using rapid advancements in DNA sequencing, the
goal is to accelerate new interventions, according to the Broad
Institute's Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research co-director Ben
Neale.
“We’ve made major discoveries of genes that dramatically increase the
risk of developing these illnesses," Neale said. “We know we only have a
small fraction of what is out there to be discovered.”
Personal connection inspires dedicated support
Jon grew up along the Connecticut coast as father's consumer products
company, MBI, grew more successful. The money, he said, “kept getting
bigger.” But Jon's father informed him early on he'd give most of the
fortune away.
A focused philanthropic outlet came when his son developed bipolar
disorder at 19. Jon first experienced mania at a London educational
program while attending Williams College. He harbored dreams of making
millions by setting up student housing for Americans studying abroad.
But he quickly spent all his money, flipping from mania to depression.
The mania worsened when he returned to his liberal arts school campus in
Massachusetts. He freaked out his girlfriend on a New York City visit
with comments about secret agents following him. After three days
wandering Manhattan without any money, he wound up in a deli where his
body hurt from imagined electric shocks he felt jumping onto him.
“So, I did the logical thing: I took my clothes off. And that’s how the
cops found me," Jon said.
He stayed six weeks at a psychiatric hospital in 1987, occasionally
spending time in the “rubber room.” Lithium, which he'd already been
prescribed, didn't work alone. The addition of an anticonvulsant called
Tegretol did the trick.
Neither drug was developed to treat bipolar. Nor did doctors have the
genetic understandings of the disease they do now — such as its common
risk factors with schizophrenia, an insight driven by the Broad
Institute.
Jon's parents wanted to change that.
Stewarding your parents' giving goals
Still, Jon said, his dad didn't “just start writing checks everywhere.”
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A portrait of Ted and Vada Stanley hangs in the lobby of the Broad
Institute, which houses the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research,
Tuesday, March 17, 2026, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
 His parents first founded the
Stanley Medical Research Institute. As Ted aged, however, Jon said
he decided to give nearly everything to the Broad Institute. Ted had
become frustrated with academic research models where professors
string together grants, working separately on similar causes that
fall within a funder's interests. He wanted to put all his eggs in
one basket.
“We give all the money to Broad and they’re all looking at the one
problem,” he said. "It’s much more like a wartime economy.”
His father devoted $825 million altogether. But the stock market,
where he'd invested his philanthropic funds, performed better than
expected. There was additional money to commit.
Jon, one of three Stanley Family Foundation trustees, held no
reservations about Broad receiving even more. He considers it his
obligation to do "what my dad would want if he was here.”
“He didn’t think he needed all that he made." Jon said. "But he was
very interested in making more so he could give it away. So, who am
I to overrule what he thought?”
The role of medical philanthropy
Funding to understand and treat mental illness might appear robust.
However, experts caution the combined support from the government,
private industry and philanthropy pales in comparison to the burden
caused by diseases such as bipolar disorder.
The federal government provided more than $2 billion annually for
mental health between 2019-2024. But studies show schizophrenia
alone costs the U.S. more than $300 billion a year — partially due
to fragmented care systems that don't treat people proactively
enough, according to Sylvie Raver, a senior director at the Milken
Institute’s Science Philanthropy Accelerator for Research and
Collaboration.
Raver said there's been a decline in support for serious mental
illness at the National Institutes of Health. The existing funding,
according to Raver, can be siloed and isn't necessarily targeted
toward the needs of impacted families like the Stanleys.
“When you marry capacity, like what the family has, and
understanding and personal resonance with the topic, like they have
as well, philanthropy is really primed to do exciting things," said
Raver, who leads brain disease and mental health portfolios.
Pharmaceutical companies, another research funder, are bound by
obligations to turn profits for shareholders and bring products to
market. Neale, the Broad Institute member, said private industry's
difficulty developing drugs chilled their enthusiasm in this area.
These are, he acknowledged, “some of the most difficult problems in
all of medicine.”
“We don't even understand where the fundamental pathology is, the
thing that's giving rise to the illness,” he said.
Neale hopes nonprofit researchers catalyze the rest of the field.
His goal this next decade is to jumpstart clinical trials for
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder interventions. Anything less and
he said, “we will have failed.” His team will also be recruiting
enough people with bipolar who carry genetic variants to study
whether their mutations mean anything.
The more they show what's possible, Neale said, the more players
they'll draw to their effort.
Jon, a founding board member of the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy
Center, has been around long enough that he tries not to get too
excited about any breakthrough. His family's confidence in the Broad
Institute stems not from its successes, but its processes.
“It’s not just shaking a test tube and seeing if it turns blue or
red," Jon said. "They’ll notice things and analyze the data in a way
that, even if it doesn’t work, they’ll learn something.”
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