Access to Basics

The Dream Fund at UCLA

As much as freshman Sogol Ashrafian ’15 wanted to attend UCLA, she and her family couldn’t afford the fees and didn’t want to assume loans. An excellent student, Sogol had been accepted by a number of top-tier universities. She had decided she’d have to settle for her second or third choice when the solution came: an email from UCLA offering her a scholarship. Her mother cried. “Everything works itself out,” says the new Bruin who plans to major in pre-med.

Support for Sogol’s scholarship stems from the Dream Fund at UCLA, a donor-advised fund that addresses some of society’s most challenging problems across the country. The UCLA Foundation manages and administers the fund, which consists of assets and charitable programs transferred to UCLA by the Lincy Foundation last February.

In addition to providing scholarships for exemplary students at UCLA, the fund benefits charitable projects nationally, such as SHARE in Beverly Hills, California, which raises funds for developmentally disabled, abused and neglected children, and Three Square food bank in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Dream Fund’s support has enabled Three Square to expand its service area from local to regional in a state where “one in six is unsure where their next meal is coming from,” according to retired founding CEO Julie Murray.

Three Square distributes food to seniors and to at-risk children through school programs and parks and recreation. Students who receive free lunch at school also get food-filled backpacks for weekends. “People can’t learn, look for work, or care for their families when they’re hungry,” Murray says. The food bank now serves 600 partner programs throughout Southern Nevada.

Again and again, the work of the Dream Fund at UCLA demonstrates what a difference philanthropy can make in individual lives.