Michael Jordan’s $10 million gift boosts Wilmington hospital

In a city that still calls him home, Michael Jordan’s name is turning up in an unexpected place: on clinic doors, in hospital plans and in conversations about what health care access looks like for families who have gone without it.

Over the past several years, the six time NBA champion has poured millions into Novant Health facilities tied to Wilmington and the surrounding region, building a network that starts with basic primary care and stretches into high end neurological treatment. Local health leaders say the money is doing what big gifts are supposed to do, bringing services closer to patients and pushing a hospital system to move faster.

Jordan’s most recent donation, a $10 million gift announced in November 2025, is earmarked for Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center. The money supports the hospital’s neuroscience institute, which is set to carry the name of Jordan’s mother, Deloris Jordan, a nod he described as personal and purposeful. Hospital officials say the funding is aimed at expanding brain and spine care and making advanced treatment more reachable across southeastern North Carolina.

The Wilmington investment did not come out of nowhere. Jordan’s partnership with Novant Health has unfolded in chapters, starting in Charlotte and then circling back to the coast where he grew up. In 2017, he donated $7 million to help open two clinics in Charlotte designed to serve patients who were uninsured or underinsured. The clinics combined primary care with behavioral health support and connections to social services, a model the health system later pitched as a blueprint for other communities.

In 2021, Jordan committed another $10 million to bring that approach to New Hanover County, where gaps in routine care can snowball into emergencies. Two Michael Jordan Family Medical Clinics were planned for the Wilmington area, offering primary care to people who often delay treatment because of cost, transportation or the lack of a regular doctor.

By 2024 and 2025, the Wilmington clinics were opening their doors, adding exam rooms and staff in neighborhoods where residents said appointments had been hard to come by. The clinics are designed to handle common issues like hypertension and diabetes before they become crises, while also helping patients navigate referrals and medications. The health system has said early results showed heavy demand, with one location serving roughly 1,800 patients in its first nine months.

Those numbers matter in a region where a single missed prescription or an untreated stroke risk can change a life. Health workers describe the clinics as an on ramp into the medical system for people who have long felt locked out of it. Patients arrive for checkups, but staff members also look for barriers that keep them from staying well, whether that is a lack of transportation, unstable housing or difficulty paying for follow up care.

Jordan’s latest gift moves the story beyond primary care and into specialized medicine, signaling a wider ambition: keep people healthier in daily life, and build world class capacity for the moments when life turns on minutes. Neurological care is one of the most resource heavy corners of modern medicine, requiring specialists, imaging, rehabilitation and coordinated emergency response. Novant Health says the institute funding will help it expand technology and expertise for conditions including stroke, spine disorders and degenerative brain disease.

The donation also lands at a moment when hospitals are under pressure to show they can deliver both community care and advanced services without pricing out the people they serve. Wilmington’s main hospital has become a regional hub, drawing patients from smaller towns and rural counties. Leaders at the medical center have said philanthropic dollars can accelerate projects that might otherwise take years.

Jordan, now a billionaire businessman whose career began on Wilmington courts and at Laney High School, has a long record of giving, from hurricane relief to large scale commitments tied to racial equity. In North Carolina, the health care focus stands out for its staying power and its footprint, brick and mortar sites that patients can point to and use.

Novant Health has said Jordan’s gifts to its foundation now total $27 million, a figure that reflects how the relationship has grown from a one time headline into an ongoing campaign. A formal dedication for the Deloris Jordan Neuroscience Institute is expected in early 2026, extending a partnership that, in Wilmington, is increasingly measured in appointments kept, illnesses caught early and lives stabilized.