After six years and an additional half-billion dollars, the University of California, Irvine, has concluded its $2 billion Brilliant Future campaign.
The effort exceeded expectations, raising more than $2.4 billion from more than 122,000 donors, including leading benefactors such as Susan and Henry Samueli, Joe Wen, Ann and Charlie Quilter, Charlie Dunlop, and Robert and Adeline Mah.
It marks the largest comprehensive campaign to take place in Orange County, according to officials.
“We’re in a time right now where funding for higher education is always in demand,” Brian Hervey, vice chancellor for university advancement and alumni relations, told the Business Journal.
“It’s just an incredible statement about the support of both UC Irvine here in Orange County, as well as higher education as a whole.”
Proceeds from the campaign have helped UCI meet demand for new facilities and scholarships caused by growing enrollment.
The university received nearly 150,000 first-year undergraduate and transfer applications for the fall 2025 quarter and offered admission to 45,672 students.
In response, UCI has built new classroom space and dorms, including a new five-story undergraduate student housing complex that opened Sept. 19 with 424 beds.
The campaign overall resulted in the creation of 269 scholarships, fellowships and students awards and six new buildings, with more underway on campus and nearby at UCI Health’s $1.3 billion medical complex.
Upcoming projects include a 230-seat dining hall that’s expected to be completed in August 2026, as well as the all-electric 144-bed acute care hospital at UCI Health that’s slated to open in December.
$50M Gift for Alzheimer’s and Dementia Research
Closing out the campaign was a $50 million gift from the Quilter family to the UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND), the university’s research institute for aging and dementia research.
Ann and Charlie Quilter are alumni and past donors who have been longtime supporters of UCI MIND, driven by Ann’s personal experience of having parents who suffered from Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia.
The couple is well-known in Orange County, particularly Laguna Beach, where Ann was the previous Laguna Beach Woman of the Year.
Charlie, a veteran Marine fighter pilot, co-founded QSC LLC, a manufacturer of audio, visual and control systems in Costa Mesa. It Nwas sold last year for $1.2 billion to Atlanta-based Acuity Brands Inc.
Charlie’s brother Patrick Quilter, who also co-founded QSC, recently donated $40 million to the Laguna College of Art + Design to help the college’s $100 million capital campaign to consolidate campuses to one main campus.
The UCI gift will help accelerate breakthroughs and expand caregiver outreach and training. Hervey said more details on what the gift will add to UCI Mind will be announced in the coming months.
“UCI Mind has been around for quite a few years, but we’ve always had a dream to really expand it,” he said.
The research institute is one of 35 NIH-funded Alzheimer’s disease research centers in the U.S. and the only one in Orange County.
The Four Pillars
When officials established the $2 billion goal for the campaign, half was allocated for healthcare projects, Hervey said.
It’s one of the four pillars the campaign aimed to fund, with the others being student success, research and the arts and culture.
“Health is on a lot of people’s minds,” Hervey said. “We’ve seen an unprecedented growth in demand for both health services, as well as growth in research programs within Orange County.”
The biggest contribution for healthcare came from Susan and Henry Samueli, who gave a $200 million gift in 2017 to establish a new college of health sciences, which now includes the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute. It remains the largest gift in the university’s history.
More recent gifts toward health came from biotech entrepreneur Charlie Dunlop and Joe Wen, founder of Formosa Ltd., who eachgave $50 million each last year.
Dunlop’s gift renamed the school of biological sciences, while Wen’s gift created a new school of public health.
For research, UCI constructed a new state-of-the-art research facility that was funded by two gifts totaling in over $50 million from the Mah’s through their Falling Leaves Foundation.
The facility, which opened this year, aims to find breakthrough treatments for diseases ranging from cancer to vision loss, as well as prevention for other common illnesses.
Another area of focus for the school was the arts.
“Even from the beginning of the campaign, one of the key goals was to expand and have an art museum in Orange County that specialized in California art,” Hervey said.
In 2021, the university received an undisclosed naming gift from Jack and Shanaz Langson for the Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art (Langson IMCA), featuring art that was donated from the Buck and Irvine family.
The couple both serve as trustees of the UCI Foundation. Jack Langson, president and owner of Newport Beach-based construction company Investment Building Group, also donated a gift naming one of the libraries on campus after him in 2003.
