Mr. Wilson attached one major condition to almost all his contributions — namely, that the money be used to spur matching contributions from others. In most cases, the check was delivered only after the other donors had been lined up. Mr. Wilson began using the technique in the late 1980s, before matching gifts were common in the fund-raising world.

He was known for his frugal habits. Mr. Wilson rarely took a cab, managing to get where he needed by subway, until he had the stroke. When he had to take a cab, he was known to persuade one of his well-heeled San Remo neighbors to share the fare.

“One of the dumbest things you can do with money,” Mr. Wilson said in a 1979 interview with Forbes magazine, “is spend it.”

Mr. Wilson put his already considerable fortune at risk in 1978 in what Forbes magazine called “the most catastrophic short play in modern times.” In that deal, he bet against Resorts International, taking a large short position on the hotel chain (which had just built the first casino in Atlantic City) in May, when the share price was around $15. By the time the stock reached $190 in the fall of that year — and Mr. Wilson cut his losses — he was out about $10 million, which would amount to about $30 million in today’s dollars.

Mr. Wilson told interviewers at the time that, luckily for him, he had a “high tolerance for stress.”

Robert Warne Wilson was born on Nov. 3, 1926, in Detroit. He told friends that his father sold insurance, and that he came from a family of a “lower upper middle income” station. He graduated from Amherst College, magna cum laude, with a degree in economics in 1946 and earned a master’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan in 1947. He then entered Michigan’s law school but dropped out, taking a job on Wall Street.