Category: fund raising

Eviction

There have been worse landlord-tenant disputes

From the Daily Bruin:

A former UCLA employee reached an undisclosed settlement agreement with the UCLA Foundation Monday morning, the culmination of an eviction lawsuit brought forward by the university. In late October, the UCLA Foundation served Roselle Kipp with a lawsuit asking the court to evict Kipp from the boarding house that the UCLA Foundation owned, said Magda Madrigal, Kipp’s attorney. The UCLA Foundation assumed control over the property after the owner, Jorge Estrada, died in December of last year and bequeathed it to the foundation in a trust deed, Madrigal said.Estrada operated the property as a boarding house enabling tenants – namely UCLA students and employees – to stay there in exchange for performing chores and paying a subsidized rent fee…

Full story at http://dailybruin.com/2013/11/26/ucla-foundation-reaches-settlement-with-former-employee/ 

No room for her at the UCLA Grand Hotel?

No magic; no free lunch

 
As you can see above, Gov. Brown promised to raise $10,100 for UC by holding a brown bag lunch.  Various other fund raising promises were made in connection with a campaign – Promises for Education – announced at the September Regents meeting.  The campaign, which appears to be over although the website persists [http://www.promiseforeducation.org/], raised $1.3 million.
From the LA Times: An unusual effort by the UC system to raise scholarship money through online crowd-funding tactics — including promises by faculty and students to lead hikes, wash cars and wear kooky costumes — has garnered $1.3 million, officials said Wednesday.

The formal part of the six-week Promise for Education campaign ended Oct. 31, and about 4,000 people donated to it via social media…
When it was announced publicly in September, about $900,000 already had been given or pledged in mainly traditional ways: large donations from businesses and UC regents, along with $400,000 from the estate of a New York state history teacher, Abraham Trop, whose three children attended UC. The next $400,000 came from gifts averaging $75 each, responding to nearly 1,030 promises to do often light-hearted activities if a donation goal was met, Simon said…
Full story at www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-fundraiser-20131106,0,3246975.story

Now here’s the thing.  The idea appeared to be one of demonstrating the magic of social media to do things such as raise money.  The real amount raised by social media – if you read the article above and assume that all of the 1,030 promises in fact were communicated only by social media – was $75 per donation (just under $400 per promise so each promise got about 5 donations).  How much would have been raised by a postal campaign with similar attributes and PR? 

Now there is nothing wrong with raising money for UC, au contraire.  But social media magic, this wasn’t.  Unless you believe, of course:

Don’t twist their arms

Our previous post noted that donors do not inherently insist on capital projects.  In fact, UCLA just got $20 million, it was announced yesterday, for environmental teaching and research:
http://centurycity.patch.com/groups/schools/p/hyatt-hotel-heirs-donate-20m-to-ucla
 
Some dutiful blog readers will recall that over a year ago we posted an interview with Mark Yudof in which he insisted that UC puts donor money into buildings only when the donors absolutely insist on it – which is not at all the history of the UCLA Grand Hotel.  You can find the audio of the interview at:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2012/07/ucla-hotel-did-not-happen-that-way.html
The fact is that donors have interests beyond bricks and mortar – IF you don’t twist their arms.
We know.  When there is a build-and-bond empire to sustain, it’s hard to resist the twist:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_MBU503xII?feature=player_detailpage]

Aint that a shame?

It was another slow day at the worksite of the UCLA Grand Hotel yesterday.  The photo above was taken around 10:30 am.  Apparently, there was more action in the courtroom.  According to a media release put out by UCLA, a court decision removed the donors from one of the two lawsuits against the Grand Hotel.  (One lawsuit says the environmental review wasn’t done properly; the other says the hotel will have to pay taxes.)  You can find the media release at:

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/donors-ucla-foundation-removed-248713.aspx

The Daily Bruin version, based on the release, is at:
http://dailybruin.com/2013/10/02/luskins-ucla-foundation-dismissed-as-defendants-in-case/

According to the media release, it was “shameful” that the plaintiffs had included the donors.  Actually, there are other aspects – not mentioned in the media release – that are a shame, as this blog has pointed out many times.  It is a shame that UCLA (and other UC campuses) are focusing donations on physical plant rather than human capital.  It is a shame that the Regents have no independent review capacity for reviewing hundreds of millions of dollars of capital projects that are quickly passed before them and ultimately rubber-stamp the plans.  It is a shame that at Regents meetings, the governor focuses on the petty cash drawer – MOOCs and online education – while ignoring the trainloads of money in capital projects whizzing by.  It is a shame that donor money is somehow regarded as not subject to trade-offs.  (Channeling more of it into X means less available for Y.) 

Ain’t that a shame?

Reminder: Donors to UCLA Can Do Lasting Good Without Involving a Bulldozer

Today seems to be the day for reminders, as in our previous post.  However, the note below – combined with the tendency to divert campus donor money (and donors) into bricks and mortar – reminds us there are alternatives:

Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker, who are among the heirs to the Hyatt hotel fortune, donated $3 million to UCLA to establish an endowment for students who are or were in foster care, the university announced today. The endowment will provide funding for tutoring, mental health services, summer housing and other expenses, according to the university…

Full story at http://centurycity.patch.com/groups/schools/p/couple-donates-3m-support-ucla-foster-care-students

Yours truly would like to end this post with “Enough said.”  Sadly, it appears there is never enough said on this matter.

Now Some Students Can Be His Guest at a Brown Bag Lunch

Be my guest!

Or is it a Brown (pause) bag-lunch? In an earlier post on the Regents meeting, we mentioned the new “crowdsourcing” UC fundraising effort.  Now some students can be guests of the governor:

University of California regents spent much of Wednesday morning cheering a new fundraising initiative to encourage faculty, students and other people to raise money through their social networks for students who demonstrate financial need.
 
Gov. Jerry Brown, who sits on the UC board and is attending its meeting in San Francisco, pledged to raise $10,000.  If successful, the Democratic governor promises to “host a ‘brown bag’ lunch at my office in Sacramento with a student from each UC campus.” As of Wednesday morning, Brown had received four donations totaling $131…

Full story at http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/09/jerry-brown-promises-brown-bag-lunch-in-uc-fundraising-effort.html

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/09/jerry-brown-promises-brown-bag-lunch-in-uc-fundraising-effort.html#storylink=cpy

Food Gift for Thought

From the Westwood-Century City Patch:

A $4 million gift to the UCLA School of Law will go toward establishing a program to study and improve food law and policy, it was announced Friday. The Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy, said to be the first program of its kind at a major law school, will explore ways to hasten improvements in food safety, distribution and access, according to UCLA. The gift from the Resnick Family Foundation provides for as much as another $3 million in matching endowment funds. Lynda and Stewart Resnick ,who own such companies as POM Wonderful, Teleflora and FIJI Water, are longtime supporters of UCLA. “Our goal with this donation is to help consumers better understand exactly what they’re eating,” Stewart Resnick said. “It’s also an opportunity to improve the clarity and accuracy of food labeling and broaden access to healthy food options. I’m very optimistic that this program can save lives.”…

Full story at http://centurycity.patch.com/groups/schools/p/ucla-establishes-food-law-program

But then there is this item (totally unrelated, I’m sure) from the Jan. 16 Wall St. Journal:

Federal regulators on Wednesday released their final ruling against POM Wonderful LLC, makers of a popular pomegranate juice, saying ads for the juice such as one headlined “Cheat death” made misleading claims about the drink’s health benefits. The ruling by the Federal Trade Commission, which has been battling POM Wonderful since 2010, could also affect food and drink makers more broadly because the agency detailed its standards for claims that a product treats a disease. The FTC said POM’s claims must be backed by two randomized, controlled clinical trials, the same type of evidence the Food and Drug Administration seeks when approving new drugs.POM’s owners, Los Angeles billionaires and philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick, don’t see anything final about the decision and intend to fight on. “POM Wonderful categorically rejects the FTC’s assertion that our advertisements made any misleading disease treatment or other health claims,” said the company…

Full story at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323468604578245740405648024.html

Anyway, it’s a healthy gift:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpsNXKK0uD8?feature=player_detailpage]

Straws in the Wind

The Regents are meeting today and tomorrow.  While they are considering UCLA’s loss of the neurology lab (see our earlier post), they can also consider this headline from a USC news release that was highlighted today in Inside Higher Ed:: 

Music Industry Icons and Entrepreneurs Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre Give $70 Million to Create the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation

http://universityofsoutherncalifornia.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/j/99843C9CB6AD3D5B/636A2070300EA8D9C67FD2F38AC4859C
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/05/15/two-music-industry-icons-give-usc-70m-start-music-business-center

And they might also want to consider the new USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy: http://schwarzenegger.usc.edu/

Our earlier post on the neurology lab raid is at:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2013/05/lessons-to-be-learned.html


We can leave it to the Regents (and maybe the governor and legislative leaders) to think of the question.  As for the answer:
PS: From the Sacramento Bee‘s Capitol Alert blog:  STUDENTS DO THE GRADING: While the UC leadership discusses its agenda, UC students will publicly grade their elected representatives. The UC Student Association has scheduled a 12:30 p.m. press conference at the convention center to release a series of report cards gauging legislators’ support for higher education…

http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/am-alert-uc-regents-arrive-in-sacramento.html

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/am-alert-uc-regents-arrive-in-sacramento.html#storylink=cpy

Banned in DC

Inside Higher Ed today has a lengthy article on debate within political science over what to do about the U.S. Senate vote to ban NSF support for most research in the field.

…A number of political scientists are calling for a new approach to lobbying, and for the discipline to become more engaged in … politics. Why, they are asking, was a field devoted to the study of government unable to win support for keeping a mere $13 million in the budget? Could a different lobbying or public relations strategy have changed things — and might it change things going forward? Also up for debate is an exemption added to the Senate measure that would permit the NSF to back political science research deemed essential to national security or economic interest. Some see this part of the measure as a giant loophole that (with a little grant-writing finesse) can clear the way for most projects to continue to receive support. Others see the measure as accepting the idea that only research with immediately clear practical implications is worthy of support — a principle that would doom many social science studies (and potentially work done in other disciplines as well)…

An earlier article on the Senate vote itself is at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/21/senate-votes-defund-political-science-research-save-tuition-assistance-budget-bill

The Pen is Mightier (at the Berkeley B-School)

…Handwritten thank-you notes are apparently in vogue at the UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and not just for recruiters who hold a student’s fate in their hands.

Recently, the school set up tables and invited students, faculty and staff to pen personalized notes to Haas donors… Hundreds of Haas students and staff participated in the note-writing effort, with many sharing specifics on how donors’ money directly influenced their education or work… Some of the notes included stories about accomplishments that would not have been possible without funding, such as research projects. Others included drawings…


It’s not known how anxiously donors are awaiting these letters. Hopefully, they will arrive before Saturday delivery disappears.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=425GpjTSlS4?feature=player_detailpage]