Your Support Is Crucial

Federal support is essential for biomedical research. However, many of the greatest leaps in scientific understanding have been propelled by contributions from individuals who support the passionate vision of scientists who pursue paths less traveled but paved with promise.

Your donations are the catalyst for many of our scientists’ most groundbreaking projects that are most likely to lead to major advances in health. Major advances in medicine, including the effort to develop a vaccine for polio, were initially funded not by government grants but by private individuals.

La Jolla Institute seeks gifts of all sizes to support promising scientific ventures aimed at making a profound impact on public health. These gifts of unrestricted funds help drive exciting research projects that are not always recognized by federal agencies facing strict limitations on the risks they can take, and drawn-out funding schedules.

Your generosity turns curiosity into hope.

The Tullie and Rickey Families Spark Awards Program

The Tullie and Rickey Families SPARK Awards provide flexible start-up funding that enables LJI’s early career investigators to act on their promising projects for bold new approaches to diagnoses, treatments, and possibly even cures for diseases that afflict us today.

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Planned Giving

Planned gifts are any gifts other than cash and can be current or future gifts. With so many possibilities, there is a planned gift that suits your financial and charitable goals.

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Testimonials

The Arvin Gottlieb Charitable Foundation makes breakthroughs

When Missouri business leader Arvin Gottlieb passed away, he left generous funding—and a group of dedicated friends—to support causes close to his heart.

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Ken and Barbara Magid inspire generational giving

The Magids believe it’s important for everyone to think about what causes are meaningful to them and to pass the important concept of philanthropy on to the next generation.

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A joyful life and a lasting legacy of philanthropy

John and Cheryl continue to fund the SPARK program because the impact their gifts can have is clear. “What the Tullies and Rickeys have done with this program is perfect for a foundation of our size, because we see the leverage their gifts create,” says John.

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The power of friendship

In the summer of 2022, Shelley Rowland of La Jolla lost her life to cancer. A couple of weeks following her passing, we learned Shelley made a charitable bequest by naming La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) as beneficiary of her retirement account.

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Our Team

“The power of philanthropy helps us to pursue promising, innovative research paths that are not covered by traditional funding. We are able to recruit world-renowned faculty and the top post-doctoral researchers and provide them with funding to support the start-up of their laboratories. For example, with private funding we can acquire sophisticated new equipment and cutting edge technologies crucial for our Institute researchers to continue on a path of breakthrough and discovery and finding cures faster.”

— Mitchell Kronenberg, Ph.D., Professor and President Emeritus