The UC Davis Foundation

The UC Davis Foundation is instrumental to furthering UC Davis’ mission and vision by actively promoting philanthropy and managing donated resources for the advancement of the university. The foundation gratefully accepts philanthropic contributions on behalf of UC Davis, disburses these contributions according to the expressed wishes of the donors, and invests and manages contributions to optimally protect and enhance their financial value, including both current-use funds and permanently invested endowment funds.

A distinguished volunteer board of trustees governs the foundation. These trustees provide important volunteer fundraising leadership for the university, advise university leaders in areas related to public trust and philanthropic support, make philanthropic gifts to the university, and oversee the investments and other business operations of the foundation. Trustees are also important volunteer leaders in The Campaign for UC Davis.

Some of the philanthropic contributions made through the UC Davis Foundation in 2009-10 include:

Barbara E. Fingerut committed $1.5 million to support an endowed chair in cancer research at the UC Davis Medical Center;

Margrit Mondavi pledged $2 million to help build the UC Davis Museum of Art, which will house the university’s art collection and serve as a teaching and cultural resource for the university and the region;

Trinchero Family Estates, a family-owned wine company based in the Napa Valley, made a $1 million gift to support the construction of new facilities for Foundation Plant Services, a UC Davis program that provides disease-free grapevines to California nurseries, provides grapevine importation service to the United States and is vital to the grape and wine industries;

Bill and Millie Stone made planned gifts of approximately $400,000 – a portion through the UC Davis Foundation – to benefit stem cell research, asthma treatment and the MIND Institute;

The William and Inez Mabie Family Foundation gave more than $3.5 million through the UC Davis Foundation to support the School of Law’s expansion and renovation project, and to support the School of Veterinary Medicine’s Center for Equine Health through an endowment for operations, and to help establish an endowment for the center’s directorship;

Fred ’64, Ph.D. ’67, and Mary Jane Corson made a $100,000 gift to the Corson/Dow Graduate Fellowship in Chemistry, which supports high-achieving chemistry graduate students.

2009-10 Philanthropic support to the UC Davis Foundation

The work of the UC Davis Foundation and its Board of Trustees was vital to advancing UC Davis’ teaching, research, patient care and public service in fiscal year 2009-10. Of the $112.3 million in total philanthropic support that UC Davis received in 2009-10, 28 percent, or $32.3 million, was given through the UC Davis Foundation, with the rest given through the UC Regents. As a nonprofit corporation, the foundation is recognized under federal and state tax laws as a qualified recipient of tax-deductible charitable contributions. It operates under the auspices of the Regents of the University of California.

As of June 30, 2010, the foundation had $208.1 million in net assets. Of that amount, $162.6 million was held for endowment.

“It’s wonderful to see so many donors supporting UC Davis’ service-oriented work year after year through their gifts,” said Kevin Bacon ‘72, the foundation’s chair. “UC Davis is a remarkable institution that is improving California and the world through education, discovery and broad engagement with the public. I feel — and many others do as well — a deep sense of pride in the gifts I make to UC Davis.”