He was the co-founder and president of the National Radio Institute (NRI) in Washington D.C., which trained 1.5 million students through home study over its 88-year history. Smith's son, James Morrison Smith, was also an alumnus (Class of 1937), as was his grandson, Michael M. Galbraith (Class of 1958). In their lifetimes, they donated, in totality, over one million dollars to WPI and established three four-year full tuition endowed scholarships through the Macamor Foundation, which Smith established in the mid-1950s to continue all of his philanthropic interests after his death.