UC Irvine has concluded its decade-long Brilliant Future campaign, raising more than $2.4 billion, university leaders announced Saturday, Oct. 4, which they say is the largest philanthropic effort in Orange County history.
The campaign, which surpassed its $2 billion goal, began quietly in 2015 and went public in 2019, ultimately drawing support from more than 122,000 donors and engaging more than 93,000 alumni, officials said. About 70% of contributions were $100 or less, they said.
“The success of the Brilliant Future campaign is a powerful reminder that when a community comes together with a shared vision, anything is possible,” Chancellor Howard Gillman said in a statement. “Their generosity has transformed UC Irvine and our community and will continue to shape lives, advance knowledge and serve society for generations to come.”
Brian Hervey, UCI’s vice chancellor for university advancement, said the key focus of the campaign was financial aid. Donors established 79 scholarships, 120 fellowships and 70 student awards.
“A majority of our scholarships are need based, so they’re designed to provide access. And the financial piece is definitely a big piece of that,” he said.
Roughly a third of the campaign’s funds went to the university’s endowment, which now tops $1 billion, Hervey said, and each endowment-supported scholarship will fund students every year in perpetuity.
About 72% of UCI students currently receive grants or scholarships, and 57% pay no tuition at all.
Hervey said nearly all donations came with directions from donors. For instance, alumni Paul and Jo Butterworth gave $35.5 million to the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences to support students, whether through scholarships or other forms of financial aid.
“In the case of the Butterworths, in particular, their motivation is to impact students, to give student financial aid, because they both are UCI graduates, and they needed that financial aid. That’s what made their decision to come to UCI,” Hervey said.
Hervey said only about 1% to 2% of the money raised is truly unrestricted, meaning the campus can decide how to use it. Generally, he said, those dollars go toward supporting students.
The campaign also bolstered healthcare and educating future providers at UC Irvine.
Philanthropy supported the $200 million Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences and helped expand UCI Health, including the Joe C. Wen & Family Center for Advanced Care and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. The new UCI hospital in Irvine, slated to open in December, is the UCI health system’s sixth inpatient hospital, which Hervey said will directly benefit students and Orange County.
“I really believe in the academic health center model, which is a model where you’re delivering clinical care, but you have the full spectrum of the research, that your faculty and your physicians are researchers as well, working with patients to always be moving to develop the latest therapy. So I see that as probably one of the most tangible benefits,” Hervey said.
The campaign’s final major gift was $50 million from the Quilter family to UCI MIND, the university’s Alzheimer’s research institute, officials said. The donation will fund clinical research and expand caregiver outreach and training.
The arts received major support, too.
Hervey said early gifts included the Gerald and Bente Buck collection and the Irvine Museum collection, which together brought in about 4,000 art pieces. Then Jack and Shanaz Langson donated funds to help build an art museum. With UCI’s recent acquisition of the Orange County Museum of Art, a new museum is no longer needed, but Hervey said the university may still move forward with construction projects around the Jack & Shanaz Langson Institute of Art.
“It’ll be a great museum, but there will also be a research component to that that will provide an opportunity for our students and staff and faculty to research that art and continue to expand our knowledge about it,” he said.
University officials announced the completion of the fundraising campaign at a Saturday evening event and Hervey emphasized the campaign’s benefits extend well beyond the campus boundaries.
“While sometimes the community doesn’t see the sort of direct benefit of what’s happening in those labs, it’s the next level of research around anything you could imagine,” Hervey said. “Law, medicine, the climate, engineering, all of the STEM fields and arts and humanities, that is all being done on campus, which benefits Orange County by having a professional workforce.”
