In this report on philanthropy, you'll meet some of the uncommon people who help make UC Santa Cruz an exceptional research and teaching university.
They include alumni who, as students, benefited from others' generosity and are now expressing gratitude through their own giving. Students pursuing undergraduate and advanced degrees and participating in globally relevant research through scholarships, grants, and other institutional gifts. And individuals and institutions whose support will benefit scholarship and research for years to come.
Collectively, this report illuminates how private giving helps fulfill the dreams of UCSC students and advance our groundbreaking research and public-service pursuits.
2008-09 was another positive year for philanthropy at UCSC. The campus attracted $30.5 million in private gifts from 14,132 individual and institutional donors. That is nearly an 18 percent increase in gifts compared to 2007-08.
We achieved numerous philanthropic milestones, and we hope to achieve many more. UCSC has joined a four-year systemwide effort, called Project You Can, to raise $1 billion for student financial support programs.
Thanks to hundreds of private gifts, we matched a challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation, funding an expansion of McHenry Library to enhance its capacity to serve students, faculty, and others. An $875,000 grant from the Packard Foundation enabled one of our most promising young astronomers to expand his research. That researcher, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, dedicates part of a National Science Foundation grant to helping area underprivileged youth prepare academically and socially for college. (Read about other major gifts.)
On behalf of the UCSC Foundation and the entire campus community, thank you for your inspiring generosity and commitment to our values, our mission, and our collective works.
We need your support, more than ever. Certainly, private gifts will help offset continued declines in public funding. But, the most profound reasons to support UC Santa Cruz are found in its people, their uncommon excellence and unbridled promise.
Our people are working to protect the world's coastlines. Advance global economic policy. Unearth undiscovered languages. Better understand the origins of the universe and all its creatures. Your continued support will help make all this, and more, possible.
Cordially,
Chancellor
