University of California, Riverside (UCR) launched a new fundraising initiative to supporting students — especially those from low-income families. The UCR initiative aims to raise $50 Million in next five years to support things like:

• Scholarships and graduate fellowships
• Experiential learning opportunities
• Health and wellness resources

$5 Million Matchmaking Gift by Anderson Community Partners

Beyond Brilliant got its seed funding from UCR Foundation board of trustees member Erik Anderson, through Anderson Community Partners.

“UC Riverside serves a lot a first-generation and low-income students who might not have had college on their radar but are able to attend because of their grades or receiving scholarships,. “Because they are navigating college for the first time, there are many aspects of the experience that they either don’t know about or that are intimidating or out of reach financially or emotionally.”

Erik Anderson | Member of the UCR Foundation board of trustees

Through this initiative, UCR also created Trustee Student Support Challenge Fund that invites other trustees to join Erik Anderson in raising an overall $10 million pool of funding. This would be a dollar-for-dollar match for all new donations in support of students.

UCR’s ‘Living the Promise’ Campaign Raised $300M in Four Years

UCR has a track record of raising millions of dollars for student support. The university ran a fundraising campaign that surpassed its $300 million goal on Sept. 10, 2020. The campaign ran for four years, from Oct, 2016 to Dec, 2020.

About Beyond Brilliant Campaign

The program is aimed at tacking social mobility issues in the Inland Empire region and UCR is starting with its home base, the university itself.

The U.S. ranks 27th among 82 countries assessed for their social mobility showing there’s plenty of work the U.S. fed/state governments and higher education institutes can do to address this issue.

“UCR students are the best,” Atherton said. “Many of them are first-generation college students and I admire them for coming as far as they have on their own. They got here without us and now we need to be there for them so that they and their families can benefit from the world-class education offered at UCR.”

UCR

If you’ve got time, here’s a detailed webinar on the Beyond Brilliant Initiative by UCR.

Other Stories You Might Find Interesting

• Top 10 Startup Investors in the Inland Empire Region
• OASIS: An Initiative by UCR to Foster Innovation for Social Good
• UCR Tech Partnerships Awarded $900K Under CARES Act To Aid Small Businesses Recovery

Our goal at Startempire Wire is to act as a megaphone to connect the dots between the best startups, events, and people in the Inland Empire. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and like/follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  

Author: Sharjeel

Sharjeel joined Startempire Wire as emerging technologies editor. Earlier, he worked at Silicon Canals, a leading English language technology media source for the Benelux and wider Europe. He covered the European technology and startup ecosystem digging into latest funding rounds of startups.