Named Endowments

UCSF is fortunate in the strength of its financial endowment, which sustains the institution. Healthy as this endowment is, however, it must be perpetually grown and nurtured to ensure that UCSF's potential for great achievement is never limited by a lack of resources.

Gifts to the endowment are critical because they provide the financial security of permanent funding that:

• Makes the difference between a faculty that is merely good and one that leads the way
• Separates ordinary research programs from those that redefine how problems are approached and solved
• Helps speed laboratory discoveries into new clinical therapies
• Creates educational opportunities sought by students the world over
• Provides for state-of-the-art tools for scientists, guaranteeing that possibilities for discoveries are never stunted for want of equipment

A strong endowment ensures that UCSF will be strong for all time.

To learn more about endowed gifts and endowed giving opportunities at UCSF, follow the links below:

How Endowed Gifts Work
Benefits to the Donor
Benefits to the Recipient
Benefits to the University
To Learn More
Endowed Giving Opportunities

How Endowed Gifts Work
UCSF receives a steady stream of support from more than 700 endowed funds, including over 150 distinguished professorships and endowed chairs. These endowments make possible the University's continued contributions to the future of science and health.

Benefits to the Donor
For the donor, an endowment creates an enduring highly visible link between the donor or honoree for whom the endowment is named and the continuing achievements of the program that the endowment supports. Many donors choose to establish an endowment to benefit an area of personal or intellectual interest and then share in the pleasures of the program’s successes. Because endowments exist in perpetuity, donors and their families can enjoy the emotional rewards of these funds for generations.

Benefits to the Recipient
For the recipient, an endowment provides a welcome, ongoing source of support—freeing faculty members from the demanding but necessary task of applying for grants and allowing students to devote themselves to full-time study. Endowments enable the holders to concentrate on their work instead, as they seek to illuminate the processes of life, search for cures for diseases, train new generations of caregivers and treat the patients who rely on them.

Benefits to the University
For UCSF, an endowment enables growth and enrichment in many ways. Endowments allow the deans and directors to enhance existing programs with fellowships and lectureships. They also support promising new programs that might otherwise go unfunded. Additionally, endowments are powerful recruiting tools for attracting and retaining the most talented and sought-after health scientists and teachers. With such first-rate faculty come the brightest graduate students, the most accomplished colleagues and the public and private support that contribute to an intellectually challenging environment.

To Learn More
To learn more about establishing an endowed fund at UCSF, please contact Dan Riley at 415/476-1475 or driley@support.ucsf.edu.