Social Mobility for the Future Leaders of Industry

Nichole Ipach, Vice President of University Relations & Advancement at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), has a favorite fact she likes to point out about the grand numerical reach of the CSUN alumni. “The number of alumni we have out in the world is close to the size of the population of Miami,” says Ipach. “And in the Los Angeles area, there’s virtually nowhere our alumni are not. We do a lot and we do it in our own way.” 

Ipach holds another title as President of the CSUN Foundation. In service to CSUN’s student body and its Miami-sized diaspora, the CSUN Foundation operates as the charitable arm of the robust educational institution and acts as the philanthropic leadership for the university. The foundation is devoted to empowering its students and their families by supporting them as they pursue a higher education.

As an institution, CSUN is home to a widely diverse student body, many of which are first-generation college attendees within their families. CSUN students also come from varied financial backgrounds, and some arrive to the classroom amid non-traditional student circumstances. What attracts many of these students to CSUN are the opportunities, access, and support that CSUN and the CSUN Foundation provide. “They have the ability,” says Ipach. “They have the academic aptitude, they’re talented, they have all the qualities you want in a college student, but they’re also dealing with some inequities.”

Despite those inequities, CSUN knows the needs of its students and has a reputation for helping their students level up. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal ranked CSUN as 9th in the country for social mobility, a reflection of the university’s commitment to its mission. 

“We’re taking this population of sometimes limited means, putting them through exceptional academic programs, and then when they graduate, they go out, get careers, and become leaders of industry,” Ipach says. “One of the purposes of bringing in philanthropy is to support that effort.”

Dupre Orr (‘18): The Prescription for Young Medical Students

Dupre Orr always wanted to study biology, and at CSUN he was able to make that happen. At CSUN, says Orr, “They really want to see
you succeed.” 

His biggest challenge was balancing school while working as a security guard at a Kaiser Permanente urgent care facility. In that position, Orr was able to see how patients were managed by different doctors. Eventually, he saw himself taking on that role.

Helping to subsidize his education, Orr was supported by the James R. Simpson scholarship and also received funding from LSAMP (Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation). This funding was pivotal to Orr’s research, his ability to attend conferences, and for making presentations.

“Philanthropy removes the burden that people might experience not being able to have the resources necessary for them to reach their end goal,” says Orr.

Now a student at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, Orr aspires to work with underserved communities in populations hindered by different healthcare disparities. Says Orr, “I want to break those barriers to help them solve those issues.”

Omoné O. Livingston (‘96): Financial Engineering for the STEM Crowd

Omoné O. Livingston always had a huge passion for building and creating things, so she came to study at CSUN to follow her dream of becoming an engineer, eventually earning a bachelor’s of science degree in civil and structural engineering.

She knew that at the right point in her career, she would establish a scholarship for future CSUN students, particularly to help women of color and underprivileged students succeed in their academic pursuits. As founder, president, and CEO of O2 Engineering, Projects, and Construction Management, she has followed through with that promise.

“I’d rather not go on vacation for [students] to graduate and have food on their table,” says Livingston. “When you talk about philanthropy, it’s important. If everybody gives a dollar or two to those that are in need, do you know how much impact that would make in the world? A lot!”

Every year, CSUN invites engineering industry folks like Livingston to judge senior design projects by students in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. There, she gets to see the future of engineering and meet the kinds of students she herself has helped support.

Big Impact From Donors of All Sizes

The CSUN Foundation measures its success by the impact it makes on the university community at large. Sometimes that can mean the kind of large donor gifts that make new buildings happen, but just as important are the smaller donations that sustain the school’s ongoing programs.

“Often, impact correlates to big transformational gifts,” says Ipach. “Those without a doubt propel us forward in major ways, but it doesn’t always have to be those giant gifts that help us make a big leap forward.”

Scholarships are among the more prominent major beneficiaries of small donations and individual scholarships can usually range anywhere from as low as $1,000 to upwards of $10,000. And while it’s absolutely true that scholarships substantially reduce a student’s debt, that shouldn’t overshadow the less-obvious benefits: Scholarships can be the linchpin for maintaining a student’s enrollment; allowing students less dependency on part-time and full-time jobs, time to take more classes and possibly graduate sooner, and the peace of mind afforded to focus more on academic studies than on financial burden. Scholarships also foster success. To put it bluntly, students receiving scholarships overall have better GPA scores than those getting by without.

Consider the case of Danny Bustos (‘20), a recipient of the school’s top award for graduating seniors, the Wolfson Scholar Award. As a student of CSUN’s David Nazarian School of Business and Economics, Bustos excelled as a triple major in finance, accountancy, and business administration. According to Bustos, achieving the hat trick of graduating as a triple major could not have been possible without his academic career being subsidized by small donation-funded scholarships. Today, the 26-year-old Bustos works in the private equity industry and has created his own scholarship, the Bustos Family Scholarship, paying it forward to the next generation of students so they can have the same opportunities as he did.

When more students can benefit, small donations rise to the occasion. On a slightly grander scale, one could turn to the success of CSUN’s math tutoring centers, which have been integral for maintaining a robust culture of STEM learning and achievement, assisting students preparing for their math placement tests. These programs are powered by the Dale and Sheila Blommendahl Peer Mentoring Endowment, which helps to fund both the student tutors and the tutoring center’s computing power.

“It’s an example of the kind of small gift somebody could make that could change the course of someone’s life for the better,” Ipach says. “We believe our students deserve a certain margin of excellence, and small donor philanthropy can make that happen.”

It’s worth pointing out that CSUN, being a California state institution, is a recipient of state funding, but that money is highly regulated and not always so dependable. “We appreciate the state of California and what they can do,” says Ipach, “But state dollars fluctuate. They’re here one day, and they’re talking about cuts the next day. They don’t provide us with the flexibility that we need to adequately fund initiatives like paid internships and undergraduate research. Private donations don’t have the same restrictions or limitations.”

If the state of California can sometimes experience financial uncertainty, so too can the average college student. Demonstrating an institutional awareness about the needs of some of their students, the CSUN Foundation developed what’s to be called the Valera NEST (Nurturing Environment for Students to Thrive), a centralized resource center devoted to assisting students in the non-academic, but equally important, realms of food, clothing, and wellness. Set to open in the fall of 2025, the Valera NEST is the perfect example of private and state funding coming together to help CSUN students succeed. Alumni champions Milt Valera (‘68) and Rick and Barbara Levy (‘74 and ‘74) pulled together their donations in tandem with secured government funding courtesy of Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo to create a resource facility that will be vital to those in need.

Looking towards the future, CSUN wants to refine their philanthropic ventures to cater even more to the needs of their students, but that doesn’t necessarily mean relying only upon the most generous of large donors. “Small donors are not small!” says Ipach. “Donors who give at any amount are incredibly meaningful to us. We don’t take it for granted; they are propelling us forward.”