Philanthropy Mayor

Bloomberg Becomes Top University Donor

With $350 million gift to Johns Hopkins.

His first donation to his alma mater was just $5 the year after he graduated. But on Sunday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will become the most generous university donor to ever in the U.S. when he makes a $350 million gift to Johns Hopkins University. The gift brings Bloomberg’s four-decade total to $1.1 billion in donations. The money over the years has helped fun campus remodels, a physics building, a school of public health, a children’s hospital, a physics building, a stem-cell research institute, a library wing, and 20 percent of all need-based financial aid grants over the past few years. Famously, Bloomberg plans to give away all of his $25 billion fortune before he dies.