Jilted by strained state budgets, UCLA received a $200 million Valentine's Day gift from a private foundation Monday.
The university announced that it is absorbing all the assets of the Lincy Foundation, which has been donating to charitable causes across the world since 1989. The money will set up UCLA's Dream Fund, a community fund that will provide for medical research, academic programming and other charitable projects.
"The Dream Fund's impressive scale and flexibility will enable us to undertake new, innovative and impactful scholarship that we otherwise could not, and it will significantly enhance our ability to respond to some of society's most pressing needs," said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block in an campus-wide memo.
The Lincy Foundation was created by Kirk Kerkorian, a Las Vegas mogul and one-time owner of MGM Studios. His gift comes less than a month after the $100 million given to UCLA by alum Meyer Luskin and his wife Renee. While the Luskin gift was meant mainly for civic engagement and public affairs projects, the Lincy gift can be spent more flexibly on students, faculty and scholarship.
In a video statement, Block said that in these uncertain times, public institutions like UCLA are relying on private donations for support.
"Many of the very special things that this institution does in research, in the education of our students, depends on private philanthropy," Block said.
