Trustee donates $20 million to medical center

USC Trustee and alum Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne have donated $20 million toward the foundation of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC, according to USC News.

The facility, founded earlier this year by a $200 million donation from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, will focus on the holistic prevention of cancer through interdisciplinary research.

Marc Benioff is the chairman and CEO of Salesforce, a cloud computing company based in San Francisco. Benioff has also been a member of the USC Board of Trustees since 2010. According the press release, he is credited with creating the “1-1-1 model of philanthropy, donating 1 percent of Salesforce’s equity, employee time and product to nonprofits and educational institutions to improve communities around the world.”

“Marc and Lynne Benioff stand among our nation’s most visionary philanthropists, and their extraordinary gift invests in USC’s commitment to new technologies and research that fight cancer,” USC President C. L. Max Nikias said in the press release. “Their gift also ensures that our University will remain at the fore of this field, and continue to bring hope and resolve to the fight.  We should all applaud the Benioffs’ dedication to our collective fight against cancer.”

The donation was made in honor of Benioff’s father, Russell Benioff, who passed away from cancer. The lobby of the building will be named after the late Benioff.