‘Transformative’ donation to UCSF: $500 million

Amanda Voight (l to r), first year UCSF medical student, talks with Andrew Wong, first year UCSF medical student, as they work on a project on e-cigareettes in the UCSF Parnassus Campus library with others on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif. less Amanda Voight (l to r), first year UCSF medical student, talks with Andrew Wong, first year UCSF medical student, as they work on a project on e-cigareettes in the UCSF Parnassus Campus library with others on ... more Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close ‘Transformative’ donation to UCSF: $500 million 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

The Helen Diller Foundation is pledging $500 million to UCSF — the biggest gift in campus history and among the largest to any public university in the United States — to recruit faculty and students and fund “high-risk, high-reward” research.

The gift, to be announced Thursday, comes on top of a series of hefty donations to the school over the past decade, including a previous $35 million contribution to support cancer research from Diller, a philanthropist who died in 2015 at her home in Woodside, and two $100 million gifts from Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne Benioff, for the UCSF children’s hospital.

The donation matches in size one made last year by Nike co-founder Phil Knight to the University of Oregon, which was at the time the largest in history to a public university.

“The impact of this gift goes beyond just the one institution, particularly coming on the back of now several major gifts,” said UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood. “The Bay Area right now is like the Florence of the Renaissance. We’ll be able to use these resources to bring additional brain power, not just to UCSF, but across all institutions here, plus the Googles and the Facebooks and the Genentechs.

“It’s like a total transformative opportunity,” he said.

The bulk of the donation, $400 million, will go toward recruiting and retaining top faculty and students and will increase UCSF’s $2.25 billion endowment by 18 percent. Half of this new money will create a funding stream to support UCSF faculty looking toward leadership positions as well as the recruitment of senior professors from other institutions. The other half will support students at UCSF’s four professional schools.

But in addition to the size of the donation, what’s especially noteworthy is that it leaves $100 million unrestricted. The university can spend the money at its discretion and put it toward innovative projects that are difficult to pay for.

That kind of untethered giving is almost unheard of, university officials said. Last year, UCSF raised $747 million from philanthropic sources, but less than one-half of 1 percent of those funds were unrestricted.

Diller’s daughter, Jackie Safier, said the unrestricted money is a sign of the confidence her mother had in the leadership at UCSF and the work of the doctors and scientists there.

“My mother recognized that discretionary dollars are very rare, are very coveted,” said Safier, who is president of the Helen Diller Foundation board. “She had a lot of confidence and trust in UCSF and wanted to set an example to other generous donors. When you have incredible leadership at institutions like UCSF, they need to make decisions on a dime, and flexibility is important.”

Hawgood said the unrestricted gift is critical at a time of pinched federal funding, when available money tends to go toward research that is relatively conservative and has a good chance of success. Science that’s newer and riskier, but potentially groundbreaking, is a much tougher sell.

The discretionary money will allow the university to invest in the most exciting fields of research, which will in turn draw innovative students and faculty to its ranks, Hawgood said.

“Historically, I have not had a significant pool of unrestricted money that I can just say, ‘Go to the races.’ Not spending stupidly — but allowing me to really invest in those high-reward scientific ideas that are going after the big hairy problems,” Hawgood said. “This fund allows you to grease the wheels on that big thinking.”

Sue Cunningham, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in Washington, said the gift was a “remarkable act of philanthropy.”

“When gifts of this significance come about, it’s the result of a relationship that has been developed over a considerable period of time,” Cunningham said. “A gift of any scale to invest in education is enormously valuable. But this demonstrates a real confidence and understanding on the donor’s part.”

Faculty members who were told of the gift before Thursday’s announcement were thrilled. More money for students, they said, means the university can recruit talented young people who may not be able to afford advanced education, and allow them to graduate with little or no student debt.

Dr. Matthew State, chair of psychiatry, said recruiting top faculty is a constant challenge. The Diller gift won’t just provide the money to lure new faculty and retain young stars, he said, but also is “a really important statement, too.”

“We’ve had several of these announcements over the last couple of years and that really reflects how special this place is,” State said. “It’s a source of pride not only in terms of our competitive nature, but in what it reflects about what people feel about the work UCSF is doing. That alone helps with recruitment.”

Including this donation, the Diller foundation has given $650 million to UCSF. Safier said her mother was dedicated to philanthropy in education and children’s needs, but had a special affection for the university. A San Francisco native, Diller was born at Mount Zion Hospital before it became part of UCSF, and volunteered in various capacities at UCSF over her lifetime.

She and her husband, Sanford Diller, who founded Prometheus Real Estate Group, built a legacy of philanthropy in the Bay Area. The Helen Diller Foundation has donated to parks, playgrounds, museums and educational programs, especially geared toward teenagers. The family’s first large gift to UCSF was the $35 million that established the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Care Center.

Safier said her mother had been the one to initiate conversations about the $500 million gift, though she wasn’t able to see the process to its end.

“My mother wanted to have a global impact on health care, for all humanity. And she knew if you want a global impact, you have to invest deeply,” Safier said. “She really believed UCSF was the place to do it.”

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com