Nike co-founder Phil Knight is donating $2 billion to the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) Cancer Research Center, which calls it the largest gift ever for a U.S. university, or academic health center. Donations from Knight and his wife Penny will support the school’s Knight Cancer Institute and continue the couple’s long-term record of supporting cancer research.
“We are even more excited about the work’s potential for change for humanity,” the Knight said in a statement. They added that their donations will focus on helping “cancer research, diagnosis, treatment, care and one day, elimination”.
Due to the magnitude of donation, the Knight Cancer Institute will now become an autonomous entity within the OHSU, supervised by the newly established Knight Cancer Organization. Leading the group is Brian Druker, a doctor scientist who chairs OHSU’s leukemia research and is the leading developer of Gleevek, a breakthrough precision cancer drug. With the support of the Knight, the agency plans to accelerate diagnosis, expand access to clinical trails, and provide patients with a wide range of resources, from consultation to symptom management and survival care.
“We have revolutionized the way we detect and treat cancer,” Drucker said in a statement. “Now, we will change the way we care for patients while continuing to develop innovative treatments.”
Phil Knight’s legendary charitable legacy
Knight, 87, grew up in Portland, Oregon and founded in 1964 with his former Oregon track and field coach Bill Bowerman. He led the company for decades, resigned as CEO in 2004, and retired nearly a decade later.
With an estimated net worth of $35.9 billion, Knight and his wife have become one of the most outstanding philanthropists in the United States. In 2024 alone, they donated $370.4 million, ranking 10th most generous donor in the United States.
Many of their gifts are concentrated on Oregon institutions. In 2008, the couple donated $100 million to the Knight Cancer Institute and then raised $500 million in OHSU to raise funds in two years, a challenge for the university challenge. This investment established one of the earliest early stage cancer testing programs.
Knight’s philanthropy has gone beyond health care. In 2023, they donated $400 million to the 1803 fund to help revitalize the historic Black Albina community in Portland. They also gave serious introductions to higher education: Two $500 million gifts were provided to the University of Oregon in 2017 for scientific research, and donated $400 million to Knight’s alma mater, Stanford, to build a new science campus.
With this $2 billion commitment, Knight cemented his position as one of the most important higher education benefactors in higher education in the United States, and his gift was a gift from businessman Michael Bloomberg, who donated $1.8 billion to John Hopkins University in 2018 to receive financial aid from students to the school considers it the biggest gift of an American university.
Other recent donations include a $1 billion donation from Wall Street financier Ruth Gottesman to make permanent free tuition at Albert Einstein Medical College, and a $1.1 billion gift from investor John Doerr and his wife Ann to open a sustainable school in Stanford in 2022.
