Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the recently ousted chairman and CEO of American International Group, the world's largest insurer, has resigned as a director of two New York City-based nonprofit institutions, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The institutions, the Asia Society and the American Museum of Natural History, are headed by individuals who serve as directors on the AIG board, which last month forced Greenberg to resign from the company he ran for more than forty years. Both organizations have received millions of dollars from private foundations controlled by Greenberg, and his decision to resign from their boards is likely to have repercussions in the world of New York City philanthropy.

In 1998, the New York City-based Starr Foundation, which was established in 1955 by AIG founder Cornelius Vander Starr and over the years has been closely affiliated with Mr. Greenberg, its chairman, gave the Museum of Natural History $1 million. A year later, the museum's president, Ellen V. Futter, was invited to join the AIG board. In 2000, the foundation gave $100,000 to the museum, and followed that with gifts of $25.1 million in 2001 and $100,000 in 2003. In addition, Greenberg's personal foundation, the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Foundation, gave the museum gifts of $50,000 in both 2002 and 2003.

According to Asia Society president Vishakha N. Desai, the ousted AIG chief sent the society a five-sentence letter of resignation saying he continues to believe in the organization but had been on the board a long time and felt it was time to resign. Greenberg had been an Asia Society trustee since 1976 and was chairman of its board from 1995 until 2002. In addition to his personal gifts to the society, including $2.5 million for the expansion and renovation of its headquarters, it has received an average of $600,000 a year in unrestricted gifts from AIG and the Starr Foundation, which controls about 12 percent of AIG shares.

"He was a very important trustee for us because he had content expertise and a capacity to give, and he represented an institution that had long-serving interests in Asia," Desai told the Journal.