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Arkansas Children’s Receives Historic $50 Million Gift from Philanthropist B. Thomas Golisano
December 29, 2025
(Little Rock, Ark.) Dec. 29, 2025 – Arkansas Children's announces a landmark $50 million gift from philanthropist, entrepreneur and child health advocate B. Thomas Golisano. This investment is the largest philanthropic gift in Arkansas Children's history and supports key strategic priorities for the health system, including its $371 million expansion. The 10-year systemwide growth plan includes program development, workforce recruitment and facility upgrades, designed to meet the escalating child health needs of the next generation.
Golisano is the founder of Paychex, Inc., the nation’s largest human resource company for small to medium-sized businesses. The Golisano Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States devoted to supporting programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, animal welfare and child health. He has contributed more than $1 billion to advance education and health care across the country and was ranked No. 8 on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s 2024 Philanthropy 50 — a list of America’s 50 biggest donors.
In honor of his investment, the Arkansas Children’s Little Rock campus will be named the Arkansas Children’s Golisano Campus.
“Children’s hospitals are essential to the health and future of our communities, and each one serves families with unique needs and challenges,” said Tom Golisano. “Arkansas Children’s has demonstrated a deep commitment to advancing pediatric care, expanding access and investing in innovation. I’m proud to support their work and to welcome them into the Golisano Children’s Alliance as we continue building a collaborative network focused on improving outcomes for children nationwide.”
With this investment, Arkansas Children’s joins the Golisano Children’s Alliance — a growing collaborative of 12 children’s hospitals advancing pediatric health care delivery, innovation and access to high-quality care for children and families.
“The need for services continues to change and grow — and we are committed to providing the best care, research and outcomes for the patients we serve,” said Marcy Doderer, FACHE, president and chief executive officer of Arkansas Children’s. “Mr. Golisano’s extraordinary generosity is an investment in Arkansas Children’s, ensuring access to the best answers medicine can offer. This gift elevates our work as a pediatric health center of excellence, expanding care close to home for the children of America’s heartland.”
Arkansas Children’s is a nationally recognized, independently governed, freestanding pediatric health system, delivering specialized pediatric care to families in Arkansas and the broader region. Making up less than 1% of the hospitals in America, independent pediatric health systems like Arkansas Children’s are major community anchors to specialized pediatric care, education and research.
The health system’s strategy focuses on defining, discovering and delivering answers to the difficult questions facing child health — answers that families desperately need and ones that few others can provide. While child health needs continue to escalate, advancements in treatment, technology and innovation give us the tools to create new ways of delivering medicine that works for children in Arkansas.
In addition to Golisano’s transformative gift, the health system’s expansion is powered by organizational investment alongside recent historic contributions from partners across Arkansas.
Recently, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin committed $55 million of opioid and vaping settlement funds to Arkansas Children’s to pioneer one of the nation’s most ambitious research efforts dedicated to opioids’ impact on children by establishing the National Center for Opioid Research & Clinical Effectiveness (NCOR). The center is currently under construction on the Little Rock campus and is scheduled to be completed in early 2027.
In 2023, the Willard & Pat Walker Charitable Foundation, Inc., made a $25 million investment to transform child health in northwest Arkansas. In recognition of the Walker Foundation’s gift, the Arkansas Children’s Northwest (ACNW) Springdale campus is named the Pat Walker Campus.
“These landmark investments reflect an extraordinary belief in what Arkansas Children’s is building for families across America’s heartland,” said Fred Scarborough, executive vice president and chief development officer for Arkansas Children's. “As a health system, we are investing more than $371 million to fuel innovation and expand access. Every gift matters because philanthropy is the margin of excellence — ensuring we can continue to meet the growing needs of children today and well into the future.”
Learn more about the impact of this historic gift. >
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ABOUT TOM GOLISANO
Tom Golisano, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and civic leader, is the founder of Paychex, Inc., the nation’s largest human resource company for small to medium-sized businesses. Mr. Golisano’s vision, perseverance, and action have left an indelible mark on a broad spectrum of issues that touch our lives – in business, healthcare, education, animal welfare, voter policies, politics, and tax reform. His investments are advancing entrepreneurship and driving the success of numerous businesses and start-ups. His philanthropic contributions to education, hospitals — including four children’s hospitals that bear his name; Rochester, Syracuse, Ft. Myers and Buffalo and numerous other organizations exceed $900 million.
A fierce advocate for dignity and inclusion, in 1985 Tom Golisano applied his pioneering spirit to establish the Golisano Foundation to make the world a better place for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. With more than $120 million in gross assets, it is one of the largest private foundations in the U.S. devoted to supporting programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities awarding grants to non-profit organizations in Western New York and Southwest Florida.
In 2025, Mr. Golisano launched the Golisano Children’s Alliance, a national initiative that provides strategic funding and brings together children’s hospitals across the United States to elevate pediatric care by expanding services, strengthening collaboration, and ensuring that children and families have access to the highest quality medical attention close to home. Together, Alliance members are building a nationally recognized network that exemplifies excellence, dignity, and innovation in pediatric health care.
Connect with him at Golisanofoundation.org, Facebook: @GolisanoFoundation, X: @GolisanoFdn, Instagram: @golisanofdn, YouTube: @GolisanoFoundation
ABOUT THE GOLISANO CHILDREN’S ALLIANCE
The Golisano Children’s Alliance includes 12 national children’s hospitals: Arkansas Children’s Golisano Campus; Golisano Wellstar Children’s Hospital of Georgia; Golisano Children’s Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center; Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital at SUNY Upstate Medical University; Golisano Children’s Hospital of Lee Health; Golisano Children’s Hospital of Buffalo; Golisano Medical Center at Connecticut Children’s; Penn State Health Golisano Children's Hospital; Golisano Children's at UK; University of Maryland Golisano Children’s Hospital; Golisano Children's Hospital at University of Vermont Health; and WVU Medicine Golisano Children's Hospital.
ABOUT ARKANSAS CHILDREN’S
Arkansas Children's is the only health system in the state solely dedicated to caring for Arkansas' 850,000 children. The private, non-profit organization includes the Arkansas Children’s Golisano Campus in Little Rock, home to Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), and the Arkansas Children’s Pat Walker Campus in Springdale, home to Arkansas Children’s Northwest (ACNW). The two pediatric hospitals host 361 licensed beds, supported by a pediatric research institute and USDA nutrition center, a philanthropic foundation, a nursery alliance, statewide clinics and many education and outreach programs — all focused on fulfilling a promise to define, discover and deliver unprecedented child health. ACH is a Magnet-recognized facility operating the state’s only Level I pediatric trauma center; the state's only burn center; the state's only Level IV neonatal intensive care unit; the state's only pediatric intensive care unit; the state’s only pediatric surgery program with Level 1 verification from the American College of Surgeons (ACS); and the state's only nationally recognized pediatric transport program. Arkansas Children’s is nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report in seven pediatric subspecialties (2025-2026): Cancer, Cardiology & Heart Surgery, Nephrology, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology & Lung Surgery and Urology. ACNW, the first and only pediatric hospital in the northwest Arkansas region, is a Level IV pediatric trauma center. ACNW operates an inpatient unit that will expand in 2026; a surgical unit with five operating rooms; outpatient clinics offering over 20 subspecialties; diagnostic services; imaging capabilities; occupational therapy services; and northwest Arkansas' only pediatric emergency department. Generous philanthropic and volunteer engagement has sustained Arkansas Children's since it began as an orphanage in 1912, and today ensures the system can deliver on its promise of unprecedented child health. To learn more, visit archildrens.org.
