Tom Golisano announces $225 million to six children’s hospitals

Mega-donor Tom Golisano announced another huge gift on Thursday. The Rochester, N.Y., area billionaire is giving $225 million to add more hospitals to his Golisano Children’s Alliance, a national network of children’s hospitals that he established last year with $253 million. This marks the third time since 2024 that he has announced a swath of donations all at once.

Golisano’s latest outpouring provides gifts ranging from $30 million to $40 million apiece to six hospitals that are joining the Golisano Children’s Alliance. Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, in Wesley Chapel, Fla.; Renown Health, in Reno, Nev.; Children’s Hospital Colorado, in Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn., will receive $40 million apiece. Dartmouth Health Children’s, in Lebanon, N.H., will receive $30 million; and Children’s Minnesota, in Minneapolis, will receive $35 million. 

Thanks to these new donations, the alliance now includes 21 hospitals throughout the country. The hospitals operate independently but collaborate on advancing treatments and advocating for more research funding, better reimbursement rates, and improved national health-care policies.

“As a father and grandfather, I’ve seen firsthand what it means for a family to have a great children’s hospital close to home in a difficult moment,” Golisano said in a news release announcing the latest gifts. “My hope is that no family, no matter where they live or what they can afford, has to travel far or wonder if their child will get the best care available.”

Giving to upstate New York causes

Born in Rochester, N.Y., to a pasta salesman father and seamstress mother, Golisano founded the payroll giant Paychex in 1971 and built up what has become a $6 billion fortune. He has given more than $1.2 billion to charity over the years and has landed on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors five times over the past two dozen years.

Golisano has focused much of his previous giving on charities throughout upstate New York, and in 2024 he gave $360 million in one day to 82 charities in Rochester and Buffalo, N.Y.

In addition to children’s hospitals, Golisano has donated to education, health care, and human service groups. And he has given extensively and repeatedly to nonprofits that help disabled people, a cause that is close to his heart: He has a developmentally disabled son. He gives direct personal donations as well as grants through his $71 million Golisano Foundation. A spokeswoman confirmed that his latest donations to the hospitals joining the alliance are direct personal gifts.

Some of his largest donations include $50 million he pledged two years ago to the University of Rochester Medical Center to establish the Golisano Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Institute and the $25 million in 2015 and $30 million in 2021 to the Special Olympics to expand the organization’s Healthy Communities program, which provides health services globally for people with intellectual disabilities. He also gave $20 million in 2011 and another $20 million in 2015 to the University of Rochester Medical Center to establish the Golisano Children’s Hospital, which has since become a part of the Golisano Children’s Alliance.

This won’t be the end of Golisano’s giving to this cause. He said in Thursday’s announcement that he plans to continue his giving spree to children’s hospitals and wants to expand the alliance to 40 hospitals over the next several years.

To learn about big donations from other donors, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly, and our annual Philanthropy 50 listings going back to 2000.