UCLA makes history with $3 billion in gifts
By Phil Hampton
UCLA Today
UCLA has completed the most successful fund-raising campaign in the history of higher education, generating more than $3 billion to deepen and broaden the university’s excellence in education, research, health care and community service.
Chancellor Albert Carnesale announced the close of Campaign UCLA on Feb. 16, saying it had benefited all sectors of UCLA —from the College of Letters and Science to the 11 professional schools, from physical and life sciences to social sciences and humanities, from law and medicine to engineering and the arts, and from libraries to UCLA Extension. He said Campaign UCLA secured funding used to support cutting-edge research, provide student scholarships and fellowships, attract and retain top scholars in a wide range of academic disciplines, and enhance health care as well as classrooms, laboratories and other facilities.
“Campaign UCLA has been critical to UCLA’s ascent among the world’s leading research universities,” Carnesale said. “Through our donors’ generosity, UCLA has made strategic investments that advance our mission — to create and transmit knowledge, power economic growth and social mobility, and enrich the lives of the people of California and beyond. We’re grateful to the many donors and volunteers who helped make the campaign so successful.”
Of the $3.053 billion raised by Campaign UCLA since 1995, donors directed gifts to these areas:
• $226 million for direct student support such as graduate fellowships and undergraduate scholarships;
• $784 million for medical research and patient-care programs;
• $605 million for faculty research and other support
such as endowed professorships;
• $634 million for new and enhanced facilities.
Donors also provided $804 million in funding to be used for priorities — set by deans, department chairs and program directors. For example, entertainment executive and philanthropist David Geffen pledged $200 million in 2002 to endow the School of Medicine, which now bears his name. The campaign’s single-largest gift is being used to enhance research and teaching programs.
Among UCLA’s ongoing priorities are to increase direct support for students and faculty. Gifts generated by Campaign UCLA have been used to provide more than 30,000 scholarship and fellowship awards to undergraduate and graduate students and to endow 124 new professorships, which have attracted and retained top scholars and researchers in a wide range of academic disciplines.
“The role of private giving and the engagement of faculty in philanthropic efforts are increasingly important as the funding gap between public and private universities widens,” said Professor Adrienne Lavine, head of the UCLA Academic Senate. “Campaign UCLA benefited every segment of the institution, including faculty, and helped to secure UCLA’s long-term future among the world’s leading research universities.”
Vice Chancellor of External Affairs Michael Eicher, who oversaw Campaign UCLA, emphasized the importance of the partnerships needed to identify funding priorities and raise more than $3 billion. “It takes a great deal of dedication and collaboration among campus leadership, faculty, alumni, donors, volunteers and development staff to ensure that money is raised for the areas where it’s needed most to help sustain our broad-based excellence,” Eicher said. “The results of Campaign UCLA illustrate what can be accomplished when we work together.”
Campaign UCLA began in July 1995 with an initial goal of $1.2 billion. In March 2002, UCLA doubled the goal to $2.4 billion. The campaign closed Dec. 31, 2005, with $3.053 billion in gifts and pledges from more than 225,000 donors. Of the donors, 222,000 gave less than $50,000 cumulatively over the course of the campaign — an indication of wide support and that every gift counts.
Every gift, no matter the size, can have a direct and positive effect on the life of a student, the work of a faculty member or the scope of groundbreaking research, Campaign UCLA Chairman Bob Wilson said.
Chancellor Carnesale noted that state funding constitutes less than 15% of UCLA’s $3.6-billion operating budget, down from almost 21% in 1997. In addition, he said, UCLA competes for faculty and students against private universities with far greater financial resources.
“Private giving is critical if we are to continue to attract the best and the brightest,” Carnesale said.
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