Dear friends,
At UC San Diego, everything we do is dedicated to delivering accessible educational opportunities and transformative public service. The UC San Diego Foundation Endowment, valued at $1.79 billion as of June 2025, provides critical resources in support of this vision, ensuring our students, researchers, physician-scientists, faculty, and staff are equipped with the multidisciplinary tools needed to accelerate answers to our world’s most pressing issues.
The Foundation Endowment delivered exceptional investment performance in FY 2025, achieving a 13.0% gain for the year. This outcome reflects the success of our diversified investment approach, with our primary manager, the UC Investments General Endowment Pool, generating a solid return of 12.1%, while our secondary investment, the S&P 500 ETF, returned 15.2%. Financial markets were resilient, despite navigating persistent volatility, elevated interest rates, and ongoing tariff uncertainty. Our commitment to the long-term investment horizon and a disciplined strategic asset allocation continues to yield compelling results: public equity markets reached all-time highs, driven by outstanding performance in the technology sector, robust corporate earnings, and sustained strength in the labor market.
The Endowment’s 10-year annualized return of 9.3% is among the top performers within our peer group of similarly sized endowments — a testament to our investment philosophy and execution. Given our enduring strong performance and the Endowment’s healthy position, the Board of Trustees has decided to maintain the current payout level to fund beneficiaries for FY 2026, supporting current initiatives while preserving sustained capital growth for future generations.
This year marked a transition in our Investment/Finance Committee leadership. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to Deborah Bronston-Culp ’80 who concluded her six-year tenure as chair of the committee in June 2025. We thank her for her strategic guidance and dedicated service.
Philanthropic contributions amplify our ability to enhance the student experience, advance breakthroughs in health care, connect research with real-world change, and uplift our communities in alignment with our donors’ intentions. Now more than ever, we remain dedicated to sustaining a strong and healthy endowment payout. We are confident that our disciplined investment strategy and approach will continue to drive the Foundation’s long-term success. On behalf of the UC San Diego Foundation Board of Trustees, the Regents, and all of our beneficiaries, thank you for your investment in UC San Diego!
Christina J. Chase, CPA, JD
Associate Vice Chancellor
Advancement Services and Alumni Relations
CFO/COO, UC San Diego Foundation
Bosco Luján, MBA ’12
Chair, Investment/Finance Committee
Trustee, UC San Diego Foundation