UC Santa Cruz raises record $75 million

The 2015-16 school year was a very good one for UC Santa Cruz. The university raised $75 million in gifts and pledges.

UC Santa Cruz is calling it a record year for fundraising. A $4.5 million endowment from the Helen and Will Webster Foundation renamed College Eight in honor of writer and conservationist Rachel Carson.

Earlier this week, the university announced it had received a photography collection of iconic California photographs valued at $32 million, which will be accessible to the public at McHenry Library.

“Our comprehensive fundraising campaign continues to bring in much-needed revenue for our key priorities while also instilling the campus and its supporters with a culture of philanthropy,” Chancellor George Blumenthal was quoted in a press release issued by the school.

Foundations gave the campus $51 million, making it the greatest source of funding in fiscal year 2016, according to UC Santa Cruz. Corporations gave $6.8 million.

UC Santa Cruz reports the following significant gifts:

— $3.8 million bequest intention from a friend of the campus to support the Office of Physical Education, Recreation, and Sports dance program and for use at the chancellor’s discretion,

— $2 million from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to launch a conservation scholars program to increase diversity in the field;

— $1 million from alumnus and Chronicle Books CEO Nion McEvoy to support) programming for UC Santa Cruz’s Institute of the Arts and Sciences; and

— $1 million grant from the Simons Foundation to support development of a comprehensive map of human genetic variation – a critical new resource for both medical research and basic research in the life sciences.