Nike Cofounder Phil Knight Donates $1 Billion For New Engineering School

by · WWD
Penny Knight (L) and Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike.Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Nike cofounder Phil Knight and his wife Penny have a history of giving back, and their latest gift is to the University of Oregon.

The Knights on Wednesday donated $1 billion to the University to create the Knight College of Engineering in Eugene, Ore. The new school will be located at the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact. The donation was described by the University as the “largest gift ever made to a comprehensive public university.”

The donation, according to the University, is for a new college that would “educate engineers and applied scientists in bioengineering and other high-demand disciplines, attract faculty and researchers [and help] accelerate the university’s ability to move discoveries out of the laboratory and into products, therapies, technologies and companies.”

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Knight is a member of the University of Oregon’s Class of 1959. The gift is the third commitment by the Knights over a ten-year period. They donated $500 million in 2016 and $500 million in 2021 to expand the Knight Campus.

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“Phil and Penny Knight have a long history of believing in things before they exist,” University of Oregon president Karl Scholz said. “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.”

The Knights are known for their philanthropy and have also made charitable donations to help Nike’s Portland community.

The donation to the University of Oregon was preceded a week earlier by a $1.1 billion gift to the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center and the Providence Heart Institute, in Providence, Ore. The gift will create the state’s first hospital dedicated to women’s health and help advance the next generation of cardiovascular treatment and care.

In August 2025, they donated $2 billion to the Oregon Health & Science University to expand the University’s Knight Cancer Institute’s ability to treat patients and fund research. That donation was described as the largest-ever gift to a university. It wasn’t their first donation to the Center. They made a $100 million gift in 2008, followed by a $500 million gift in 2013. The gift also made the Knights the top charitable donor of 2025, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

And in April 2023, the Knights pledged $400 million to establish the 1803 Fund to revive a once-thriving Black neighborhood in Portland. Rebuild Albina is 1803’s first project, focusing on transforming current and future generations of the community through investments in education, place, culture and belonging in the Albina area.