Endowments

A GENERAL ENDOWMENT is intended to provide general support for a department or program. This is in many ways the most important type of endowment to set up because of the flexibility it provides a department chair or program director. The payout can be used for a variety of purposes but most often is directed to the highest priorities of the department or program. While a donor interested in supporting a particular area can express a preference regarding how endowment payout is used (and this will certainly be taken into consideration), the intended use of a general endowment is to provide flexible, unrestricted departmental or programmatic support.

ENDOWED LECTURESHIPS are essential to the intellectual enrichment of UCSF students and faculty and the scientific community at large. These endowments are often used to bring visiting scholars from peer institutions to UCSF to share their ideas and research findings at lectures and seminars. In turn, the guest speakers learn from the UCSF faculty members and students they meet during their visits. Endowed lectureships can help pay for travel and other costs and to provide an honorarium for the visiting scholar. Donors can choose to create a lectureship in an area in which they have a personal interest.

ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIPS are designed to assist students earning a professional or graduate degree at UCSF and to cover what are known as “Cost of Attendance” expenses. Such expenses include a cost of living allowance, fees and non-resident supplemental tuition (if applicable), books, and supplies. The extent to which UCSF can assist students with such costs often makes the difference in whether the student will attend UCSF or another institution able to offer a more generous financial aid package. For UCSF to continue to be able to educate a diverse and exceptionally talented group of professional students in its schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, as well as its Graduate Division, it must be able to help offset the high costs that come with providing a first-rate health science education in an area of the country with an exceptionally high cost of living. Besides enabling a student to afford to come to UCSF, scholarships also allow a student to graduate from UCSF without being saddled with enormous debt. This is especially important for students pursuing research careers or work with underserved populations.

The difference between an Endowed Scholarship, a Dean’s Scholarship and a Chancellor’s Scholarship lies mainly in the degree of financial assistance each provides. Even at $500,000, a Chancellor’s Endowed Scholarship will fund only a portion of a student’s first year cost. For example, an endowment payout of 5% ($25,000) on a Chancellor’s Endowed Scholarship would cover approximately 30% of the first year costs of attending the School of Dentistry, 38% of the costs of attending the School of Medicine, 41% of the costs of attending the School of Pharmacy, 48% of the costs of attending the School of Nursing, and 62% of the costs of attending the Graduate Division. But because not all students need help with their full educational costs, Dean’s Endowed Scholarships and general Endowed Scholarships also provide important support.

FELLOWSHIPS enable UCSF to attract and retain the best and the brightest, for whom UCSF often competes with its peer institutions—which frequently have far larger endowments or are located in areas of the country where the cost of living is much less than in the Bay Area. While the majority of PhD students receive some sort of funding—frequently from sources such as merit-based scholarships, training and principal investigator (PI) grants, and extramural funding for which they apply directly—these sources of funding often fall short of covering the full cost of what it takes to live in the Bay Area while pursuing a doctorate or advanced training at UCSF, which can span five to six years. Fellows enrich UCSF’s interactive intellectual community with their enthusiasm for and sole focus on a specific area of high-risk, high-impact research and are at the same time mentored by more senior UCSF faculty and scientists. Fellows frequently go on to teach and mentor others across the country and even around the world with the unique experience and knowledge they gained at UCSF. Thus they play a key role in UCSF’s mission of advancing health worldwide. Based on a projected annual payout of 5% ($50,000) on a Chancellor’s Endowed Fellowship, such payout would just cover the cost ($50,790) of a basic science resident student but fall short of covering the cost ($65,890) of a non-resident student. The fact is that UCSF only accepts students who show exceptional potential in their field of study. Such students represent the next generation of scientists who are going to transform our understanding of disease and treatment of the world’s most pressing health problems. Thus a gift of an endowed fellowship can have a far-reaching impact and provide a donor with a tangible return on their philanthropic investment.

RESEARCH FUNDS are created to support faculty members and/or graduate students. Such funds enable the recipient to pursue promising areas of scientific inquiry. They are often used to fund high-risk research projects in their initial stages, when other sources of funding are difficult to find, or to provide additional funding for projects only partially covered by, for example, the National Institutes of Health. The ultimate goal of research is scientific discovery which, if successful, can lead to new therapies for patients and improved lives for many.

The tradition of endowing professorships goes back many centuries. At UCSF the first such endowment was established in 1933 by Professor Morris Herzstein. Until very recently the holder of the Morris Herzstein Chair of Biology and Physiology was Elizabeth Blackburn, who in 2009 won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and now heads the Salk Institute. UCSF has nearly 300 endowed chairs and distinguished professorships. Collectively, they demonstrate the prestige of our faculty and the esteem they have earned in the philanthropic community.

The prospect of an endowment is crucial to recruit new faculty, whose passions and aspirations we want to support. Endowments are also essential to retain current top faculty, whose great successes draw the attention of other institutions. But the primary goal of an endowment is the work it generates and the results it makes possible. Creating this resource is a tribute to the faculty member and his or her team as well as a recognition of the importance of their work.

An ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP gives donors the opportunity to provide partial support for an area of deep personal interest. The fund can help advance scientific research, pay for attendance at key conferences, support clinical research, and more.

A DISTINGUISHED PROFESSORSHIP recognizes outstanding accomplishment. Such professorships are awarded to distinguished faculty, most often after many years of service to the institution. A Distinguished Professorship can also be used as a tool to recruit outstanding researchers, clinicians, and educators to UCSF from peer institutions. The awarding of a Distinguished Professorship allows UCSF to make a permanent, substantial commitment to a current or potential faculty member who excels in his or her area of expertise. These endowments represent a school’s highest faculty honor.

A FACULTY SCHOLAR endowment is intended to provide support for junior-level faculty at a formative time in their careers. Often it is at a point where, as assistant professors, they are just beginning to build their reputations for conducting pioneering research, developing innovative teaching techniques, and making advances in clinical care. Such endowments can foster the productivity of a young scholar, help nurture the potential of a great teacher, and ultimately encourage a lifelong commitment to advancing the health sciences. The income from a Faculty Scholar fund can be used to supplement salary, purchase equipment, underwrite research, and pay for travel and other costs. To be considered a Faculty Scholar, one must hold the rank of assistant professor. The designation would last for up to eight years or until promotion to the associate professor rank, whichever is shorter. As an aspiring scholar becomes more established in his or her career and moves up the faculty ladder to associate or full professor, the income from a Faculty Scholar endowment would be redirected to the support of another aspiring junior-level faculty member with the rank of assistant professor. This cycle of support for young faculty serves to propel the work and careers of those talented young people UCSF most wishes to foster and retain and not lose to competing institutions.

Chair’s and Dean’s Professorships are administrative professorships in that they support faculty members holding these positions and pass to their successors automatically when they step down. The payout on such professorships is used by these individuals for the general support of the department or school. Such professorships provide essential unrestricted funding that can be directed to the greatest needs of the department or school. Thus they can be used to support the cost of research assistants and graduate students working in the department or school, equipment for the general use of the department or school, scientific publications coming from the department or school, and for professional travel by faculty and graduate students. A gift to endow the position of department chair or the deanship of a school enables a donor to forever associate their name with the work and reputation of the department or school.

UCSF PROFESSORSHIPS sit in the office of the chancellor and are awarded by the chancellor to faculty members who have achieved national recognition in their chosen fields of study. They are instrumental in helping UCSF retain stellar faculty who are often sought after by peer institutions. The funding provided by a UCSF Professorship comes very close to funding the total costs associated with retaining and recruiting the best and the brightest. Appointment to a UCSF Professorship can be the deciding factor in a faculty member choosing to remain at UCSF or to come to UCSF. The power of a UCSF Professorship is that it frees a faculty member to pursue his or her scholarly work without the distraction of having to apply and reapply for grants, a time-consuming activity that can divert attention away from more important research and patient-care activities. A UCSF Professorship is intended to give brilliant individuals—some of whom may be potential Nobel Prize winners for their innovative discoveries—the “protected” time to devote to furthering their specialized areas of study.