$225 million for America’s children: Tom Golisano’s latest landmark commitment lifts his lifetime giving beyond $1 billion
Philanthropist and long-time supporter of Lifestyles Magazine/Meaningful Influence, Tom Golisano has once again made an extraordinary commitment to children and families facing some of life’s most difficult moments.
The Paychex founder, entrepreneur, and philanthropist just announced that he will invest $225 million in six children’s hospitals across the country, enlarging the Golisano Children’s Alliance to 21 institutions and bringing it more than halfway toward his goal of a 40-hospital national network.
The latest gifts are immense in scale, but their meaning is deeply personal for the families who will benefit.
They will help hospitals bring advanced treatment closer to children who need it, strengthen the capacity of physicians and nurses, and give parents more reason to hope when a child’s illness has suddenly made the world feel uncertain.
Children’s Minnesota will receive $35 million—the largest known pediatric gift in state history—to expand gene and cell therapy infrastructure.
For children with rare, serious, or previously untreatable conditions, this kind of investment can turn scientific progress into care available closer to home.
Dartmouth Health Children’s in Lebanon, New Hampshire, will receive $30 million to enhance pediatric care for children and families across northern New England. Johns Hopkins All Children’s will receive $40 million for its new children’s hospital in Wesley Chapel, Florida, helping extend specialized care to families in the fast-growing Tampa Bay region.
In the West, Golisano’s generosity will have an especially powerful reach. Renown Health in Reno will receive $40 million, while Children’s Hospital Colorado in Colorado Springs will receive $40 million, its largest single gift to any Children’s Hospital Colorado campus.
The Colorado facility will be renamed in recognition of Golisano’s landmark support—a fitting tribute to a donor whose philanthropy has become synonymous with opportunity, compassion, and higher expectations for children’s care.
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt will also receive $40 million to advance pediatric heart care and support the newly named Golisano Pediatric Heart Institute.
For children born with complex heart conditions—and the parents who must place enormous trust in the people caring for them—that investment represents a meaningful promise of expertise, innovation, and enduring support.
The six commitments bring Golisano’s giving through the Golisano Children’s Alliance to $753 million. The alliance, created in 2025, now connects 21 children’s hospitals in a growing national effort to improve pediatric care, share knowledge, and ensure that more families can find outstanding treatment in their own communities rather than traveling far from home.
That is the distinctive power of Golisano’s philanthropy. It is sweeping in its ambition, yet grounded in the very real experiences of children, parents, doctors, and caregivers.
His more than $1 billion in lifetime giving has supported children’s health, medical research, higher education, disability inclusion, and community institutions, consistently directing meaningful resources toward people and causes that need them most.
With this latest $225 million commitment, Golisano is doing more than expanding a network of hospitals.
He is helping build a more hopeful future for children whose lives may depend on the strength, skill, and generosity of the institutions around them.
