Phil and Penny Knight are giving $1.1 billion to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, a gift that will build Oregon's first hospital dedicated to women's health and expand the Providence Heart Institute.
Providence announced the commitment on Tuesday, Sept. 15, calling it one of the largest gifts to a healthcare institution in American history. The money will be distributed over 10 years.
Phil Knight co-founded Nike. The company's global headquarters in the Cedar Mill area, renamed the Philip H. Knight Campus in October 2025, sits just outside Beaverton city limits. Forbes estimates the couple's lifetime charitable giving at $4.5 billion, as The Oregonian reported.
"Penny and I have always believed that real breakthroughs come from people willing to take on the toughest challenges," Knight said in a statement. "… We're proud to invest in teams that will change what's possible for communities across Oregon and beyond."
The new women's hospital will be a separate building on the Providence St. Vincent campus in the Cedar Mill area of unincorporated Washington County, according to the Beaverton Valley Times.
The Oregonian reported Providence is planning roughly 80 to 100 beds, though the final count has not been set.
Services will include gynecology, pregnancy, labor and delivery, menopause care, cardiovascular treatment and a modernized neonatal intensive care unit.
Providence expects the hospital to create hundreds of new clinical and non-clinical jobs.
Providence spokeswoman Lisa Helderop told Willamette Week the health system hopes to break ground "in the next couple of years." Providence officials told The Oregonian it was too early to say when the facility could open.
Providence St. Vincent is a 539-bed, not-for-profit hospital founded in 1875. It delivers more babies than any other hospital in Oregon, according to Dr. Ray Moreno, the hospital's chief executive.
Moreno told The Oregonian the gift felt like a dream and would turn years of campus planning into reality.
The gift also targets cardiac care. Providence Heart Institute now sees close to 63,000 patients a year across the Pacific Northwest, up from roughly 40,000 a decade ago, according to KGW.
The Knights had already contributed $200 million to the institute over the past decade, including a $75 million gift announced in February 2026.
With this commitment, the Knight family has pledged an estimated $1.3 billion total to Providence. The gift comes just over a year after the couple pledged $2 billion to Oregon Health & Science University's Knight Cancer Institute.
No construction start date or opening timeline has been announced for the women's hospital.
