Charles Feeney has nothing named for him at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, but he built much of the facility. His $100 million check written in 2015 to support faculty, students, and building projects brought his total giving to the medical school, which started in 2004, to $394 million. That is not Feeney’s record in education giving—he has donated about a billion dollars in total to Cornell University—but it is the most any individual has donated to any campus of the University of California.
And Feeney’s support has allowed the UCSF medical program to bloom. The school is now ranked as one of the finest in the country, and in 2014 led the list of U.S. medical schools winning biomedical research awards from the National Institutes of Health. UCSF’s allied nursing, dentistry, and pharmacy schools were also top ranked that year in NIH grants.
Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce.com, is another generous supporter of UCSF, having channeled $200 million to the children’s hospitals affiliated with the university.
- San Francisco Chronicle report on 2015 Feeney gift, sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Low-profile-retail-titan-s-gift-to-UCSF-100-6088596.php