Benioff family gifts $100 million for construction of new UCSF Children's Hospital at Mission Bay

Salesforce.com chairman and CEO Marc Benioff and his family have given a $100 million private gift to help fund the construction of the new UCSF Children's Hospital at the UCSF Mission Bay campus near downtown San Francisco. The gift is both the largest gift the donors have ever made and the largest gift ever granted specifically to the UCSF Children's Hospital.

Comments on News

• "In business, we say that people overestimate what you can do in a year and underestimate what you can do in a decade. This is true in philanthropy as well," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "We will give exclusively to UCSF Children's Hospital, which has the research base for the next generation of discoveries, a commitment to advance health worldwide, and a focus on every child, regardless of resources. This is where we believe our time and resources will make the most impact in the next decade and beyond."
• "The significance of this gift is truly profound and underscores Lynne and Marc Benioff's dedication to giving back to their community through philanthropy," said UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH. "Their contribution will play a vital role in maintaining UCSF's excellence in patient care, discovery and education, and as a leader making a difference in both the local San Francisco Bay Area and worldwide."
• "The Benioffs' extraordinary generosity will have a direct impact on the many thousands of young patients cared for at UCSF Children's Hospital each year," said Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Children's Hospital. "UCSF and the Benioffs share a commitment to performing at the very highest level, and we look forward to realizing our joint vision of creating the world's most advanced children's hospital at Mission Bay."

To further engage the community, UCSF is preparing to launch an interactive website that will invite visitors to help shape the future of the new Mission Bay children's hospital. The UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Ideas site will offer an open forum for submitting suggestions and engaging in conversations about different aspects of the new facility, including innovations in care and patient amenities. The Benioffs will unveil the site – ideas.ucsfbenioffchildrenshospital.org – at a June 22, 2010, salesforce.com customer and developer conference in San Jose. The site will be powered through salesforce.com's technology.

UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Features

Upon completion in 2014, the 183-bed UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital at Mission Bay will set a new standard for patient- and family-centered health care, safety, sustainability and translational medicine. The new facility will offer urgent/emergency care, pediatric primary care and specialty outpatient services; and, with 45 more beds than the current hospital and an on-site helipad, there will be room to grow and serve more critically ill children who otherwise might not have access to lifesaving care.

Additional features include:

• The hospital is being designed specifically for children and their families, with cutting edge technology, child-friendly decor, and in-room family accommodations to promote the healing process;
• The close proximity to the UCSF biomedical research campus will speed the application of laboratory results and discoveries to the treatment of pediatric patients;
• A truly "green" hospital certified LEED Gold with extensive rooftop gardens, outdoor play areas, water conservation efforts and non-toxic materials.

History of Philanthropy

Philanthropy has long been important for San Francisco residents Lynne and Marc Benioff, and UCSF has been a close partner over the years. The Benioffs have made a number of donations, supported various research projects and have endowed four departmental chairs in gastroenterology, hospital medicine, maternal fetal medicine, and psychiatry at UCSF. Lynne is active on the UCSF Foundation's Board of Directors, the institution's premier volunteer leadership body.

Benioff made his passion for philanthropy a core value for the company he founded, salesforce.com. Within months of launching the company, Benioff introduced the Salesforce.com Foundation based on his innovative 1/1/1 integrated corporate philanthropy model where 1% of the company's time, 1% of its equity and 1% of its products are given forward to the community.

In addition, Benioff has written three books; two on philanthropy, Compassionate Capitalism and The Business of Changing the World, which demonstrate the deep interdependency between businesses and local communities and reveal how every company can incorporate philanthropy into its business model; and Behind the Cloud, which chronicles how salesforce.com grew from a start up into the world's fastest growing software company in less than a decade.