Nike co-founder Phil Knight gives alma mater University of Oregon $1 billion, biggest-ever public university gift after unscheduled call

Nike co-founder Phil Knight, and his wife, Penny, have donated $1bn to the University of Oregon. The institution has described it the “largest gift ever made to a comprehensive public university”. Phil Knight made the largest known donation to a public flagship university in the US and it surfaced from an unscheduled call. The donation is intended to be used to establish a new engineering school in Eugene. In an official statement, the university said the new school would “educate engineers and applied scientists in bioengineering and other high-demand disciplines, attract faculty and researchers to a growing campus, and accelerate the university’s ability to move discoveries out of the laboratory and into products, therapies, technologies and companies”.

This donation adds to the growing list of charity by the Knights. Last week, they committed $1.1 billion to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center and Providence Heart Institute in Portland. In 2025, they gave $2 billion to OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute. The 88-year-old Phil Knight has a net worth of around $23 billion, according to Bloomberg report.


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What University said on Knight's donation

The University of Oregon president, Karl Scholz, said in a statement that the Knights have “a long history of believing in things before they exist” and that “they did it in 2016, and they are doing it again now, at a scale that is genuinely hard to take in. I am grateful to them, and I am grateful to be here for it.”

“This extraordinary gift is an endorsement of what higher education delivers. It gives us the ability to scale innovation, accelerate impact, and meet the demand for skilled engineering required by the industries of tomorrow, all without placing that financial burden on state taxpayers.”

Phil Knights is a graduate of the university. The latest donation brings the Knight family’s known total giving to the University of Oregon to more than $2bn, according to the New York Times. The school said that the gift is the third commitment the Knights have made at this scale in 10 years, following $500m in 2016 and $500m in 2021 that created and expanded the Knight Campus.

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Nike co-founder has donated billions to Oregon causes

Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, have already given major donations to causes across Oregon over the years, particularly to University of Oregon athletics. They previously donated $100 million to build the university’s basketball arena, which was named after their late son, Matthew Knight. Phil Knight’s long-standing support has also strengthened the relationship between the university and Nike. Oregon athletes have access to new and exclusive Nike gear, as well as support related to name, image and likeness (NIL) opportunities. Oregon is sometimes referred to as the “University of Nike" due to the close bond between the university and the sportswear company.

Phil Knight’s latest donation comes at a time when federal funding for US universities and scientific research remains uncertain. In early 2025, the Trump administration laid off thousands of workers at federal science agencies, delayed some grant payments to universities and sought cuts to research overhead funding. The administration also withdrew some grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). “To make an audacious dream a reality requires more than a vivid imagination. It also requires the sort of opportunity that our great American universities, both public and private, have historically provided,” Phil Knight said in a statement. “This is no time to abandon them.” “Penny and I are grateful for the chance to invest in our most promising young people’s future in this important way,” he continued.

Earlier this month, the couple committed $1.1 billion to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center and Providence Heart Institute in Portland, and last year they gave $2 billion to OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute.