Former Penn donor pledges $100 million to U.S. Olympic, Paralympic athletes

Ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games — set to begin Feb. 6 — 1991 Wharton graduate and former University donor Ross Stevens has promised $100 million to support U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes. 

Stevens — the founding donor of the Wharton School’s Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance — created the Stevens Financial Security Awards to provide financial assistance to American Olympians. The $100 million donation follows his decision in December 2023 to withdraw an equivalent gift from Penn, citing then-President Liz Magill’s “permissive approach to hate speech calling for violence against Jews.”

Requests for comment were left with the University and with Stevens.

Under the new program, athletes will receive $100,000 over a four-year period, either 20 years after their first qualifying Games or upon reaching age 45. An additional $100,000 will be distributed to athletes’ families or designated beneficiaries. Athletes are eligible each time they participate in the Olympics.

“I do not believe that financial insecurity should stop our nation’s elite athletes from breaking through to new frontiers of excellence,” Stevens wrote in a statement to the Observer. 

According to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Stevens’ gift is the largest single monetary donation in the group’s history. The awards will begin with the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and continue through at least the 2032 Games in Brisbane. 

Stevens withdrew his donation to Penn after Magill’s testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in December 2023, in which she said that it was “context dependent” whether calls for the genocide of the Jewish people violated Penn’s code of conduct. Her remarks drew national backlash from alumni, donors, and student groups — including Stevens. 

Magill announced her resignation days later, alongside then-Chair of the University Board of Trustees Scott Bok. 

At the time, Stevens told The Daily Pennsylvanian that Magill and Bok were “unfit to lead” because they were “siding with antisemitism, they’re siding with anti-Jewish thoughts, they’re siding with the destruction of Israel.”

In a letter to Penn from his attorneys, Stevens alleged that Magill’s comments violated anti-discrimination and anti-harassment provisions in his donation agreement. 

“Because of Ross’ extraordinary generosity and philanthropic creativity, we can create more than a financial safety net,”  U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Chairman Gene Sykes wrote in a statement to Reuters. “We can build a springboard that will propel these athletes to even greater heights beyond their Olympic and Paralympic careers.”

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