Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, is donating $2 billion to a cancer research center at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in what the institution has dubbed as the largest-ever gift to a U.S. university, college or academic health center. The donation from Knight and his wife, Penny, will support the school’s Knight Cancer Institute and continues the couple’s long track record of backing cancer research.
“We couldn’t be more excited about the transformational potential of this work for humanity,” said the Knights in a statement. Their donation will focus on aiding “cancer research, diagnosis, treatment, care, and some day, eradication,” they added.
Because of the magnitude of the donation, the Knight Cancer Institute will now become a self-governed entity within OHSU, overseen by the newly created Knight Cancer Group. Leading the group is Brian Druker, a physician-scientist who chairs OHSU’s leukemia research and was the lead developer of Gleevek, a groundbreaking precision cancer drug. With the Knights’ backing, the institution plans to accelerate diagnostics, expand access to clinical trails and provide patients with a wide range of resources, from counseling to symptom management and survivorship care.
“We revolutionized the way we detect and treat cancer,” said Druker in a statement. “Now we are going to transform the way we care for patients while continuing to develop innovative treatments.”
Phil Knight’s storied philanthropic legacy
Knight, 87, grew up in Portland, Ore., and founded Nike in 1964 with his former University of Oregon track coach, Bill Bowerman. He led the company for decades, stepping down as CEO in 2004 and retired as chairman nearly a decade later.
With an estimated net worth of $35.9 billion, Knight and his wife have become among America’s most prominent philanthropists. In 2024 alone, they donated $370.4 million, ranking as the nation’s 10th most generous donors.
Many of their gifts have focused on Oregon institutions. In 2008, the couple gave $100 million to the Knight Cancer Institute, followed by a 2013 pledge of $500 million contingent on OHSU raising matching funds within two years—a challenge the university met. That investment established one of the first large-scale early cancer detection programs.
The Knights’ philanthropy has extended beyond health care. In 2023, they donated $400 million to the 1803 Fund to help revitalize Portland’s historically Black Albina neighborhood. They’ve also given heavily to higher education: two $500 million gifts to the University of Oregon for scientific research and a $400 million donation to Stanford, Knight’s alma mater, in 2017 to establish a new science campus.
With this latest $2 billion commitment, Knight has cemented his place as one of the most significant benefactors of higher education in the U.S. His gift tops that of businessman Michael Bloomberg, who in 2018 gave $1.8 billion to John Hopkins University for student financial aid in what the school then considered the largest-ever gift to an American university.
Other recent billion-dollar contributions include a $1 billion donation from Ruth Gottesman, the widow of a Wall Street financier, to make the Albert Einstein College of Medicine tuition-free in perpetuity, and a $1.1 billion gift from investor John Doerr and his wife, Ann, to launch a sustainability school at Stanford in 2022.
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