Utah Donors’ $200 Million Pledge Jumpstarts Funding For 2034 Winter Olympics

One of the many perks of having an Olympics attributed to your city nearly a decade before the Games? You can start raising money early.

The organizing committee of the Salt Lake City Winter Games has just unveiled Podium34, a $200 million commitment from prominent Utah donors “to support the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, while also addressing key sport and community causes,” according to a press release.

Matthew Brewer and Zach Miller of U.S. Ski and Snowboard wave to the crowd in the Days of ’47 parade after the IOC awarded the 2034 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City on July 2024. A new funding initiative, Podium34, has already raised $200 million for the Games. (Photo by C. Morgan Engel/Getty Images)

Getty Images

The nascent campaign has already shattered the record for philanthropic money raised in support of hosting an Olympic and Paralympic Games. By comparison, Salt Lake City received about $44 million in donor funds before the 2002 Winter Games, said Catherine Raney Norman, a four-time Olympic speedskater and bid committee chair for Salt Lake City Utah – Committee for the Games. Of the 22 donors signed on so far, nine have committed $20 million or more, while the others will add between $1 million and $15 million each.

“Founding Captains,” the megadonors who have pledged $20 million, include The Daniels Fund established by cable TV magnate Bill Daniels, the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation started by the Utah banking family whose business merged with Wells Fargo in 2000, and the Robert H. and Katharine B. Garff Foundation put in place by the Utah automotive family. Adventure company Maverik, the Huntsman Family Foundation, the John and Martha Price Family Foundation, the Ryan and Ashley Smith Foundation, the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation, and billionaires Matthew and Tatiana Prince, who along with Gail Miller have been ranked by Forbes as Utah’s wealthiest people, complete the list. Intermountain Health, the non-profit healthcare provider founded by the Church of Latter-Day Saints in 1970, has pledged between $1 and $15 million.

“To have pretty much the pillars of our community all come under one cause is remarkable,” said Raney Norman, who finished ninth in the women’s 5,000 meters at the 2002 Winter Games in what is now her home state. “So many of them see this as an opportunity of ‘How can we bring more kids to the Games? How can we get more families to the Games? How can we encourage our community, which is very service-oriented, but how can we encourage the next generation of service leaders?’ It is really amazing to hear from these individuals, to see the shared passion.”

There is also room to grow. The state of Utah leads the nation in charitable giving, but the committee is also open to accepting donations from entities outside the state. By the time the curtain rises on the second Salt Lake City Winter Games, Podium34 hopes to have raised at least $300 million.

A new, improved model for financing the Olympics

The U.S. government does not typically contribute to efforts to host the Olympics apart from providing support for security efforts, though Raney Norman remains hopeful that it may provide some help when it comes to transportation. “But that’s really all that we receive,” she said. In the U.S., the bills for the Games are taken care of through broadcast revenue, sponsorships, hospitality, ticketing, and philanthropy.

That can leave American cities bidding for the Games out on a limb when it comes to demonstrating to the International Olympic Committee that they can afford the Games. Podium34, with a string of committed donors already lined up, helped convince the IOC that awarding the Games to Salt Lake City early would pay dividends in the long run. The result was that Salt Lake was designated host city of the 2034 Games in July 2024, nearly a decade before the event, an unprecedented move.

Could this be a model for the future, especially for Winter Games facing a slew of 21st century complications? Possibly. “It showcases a little bit how organizing committees are trying to think differently about hosting Games and trying to reinvent and the delivery model and the financial backing of Games, so it’s historic in that regard, and I think it’s also innovative as well,” Raney Norman explained.

“It was really a critical piece — one, in showcasing that yes, we would be sound financially and we should have the bid awarded early, but two, it serves as an opportunity for us to launch early impact initiatives. And that was something that we always talked about as well during the bid phase, of we see these gains as an opportunity to uplift our communities, to uplift our youth, to uplift sport. Being able to have these dollars early on allows us to do that.”

From her office in Lausanne, IOC President Kirsty Coventry praised the initiative. “You’ve chosen to lead, from the beginning, to fuel the heart of this movement,” Coventry said. “You are sending a powerful message to the world that sport can inspire, that communities can be lifted, and that, together, we can build something greater than ourselves.”

Olympics outreach, powered by Olympians

The funds are earmarked for “community engagement,” and the committee is still fleshing out exactly what that looks like. Introducing Winter Olympic sports and getting kids more physically active are likely to be overarching goals of a myriad of projects ultimately funded by Podium34. “Research shows that kids who are physically active do better in school and go on to higher education,” Raney Norman said.

Connecting Utah’s robust population of Olympic and Paralympic athletes with young people is also likely to play a role. “A lot of us, we don’t leave,” Raney Norman noted, and the door is wide open for ambassador and mentorship programs. She envisions “a continuous thread” from the Summer Games in Los Angeles to Utah as the United States gears to host two Olympics in the space of six years. Ideally, Podium34 hopes to engage each of the state’s 29 counties in some way.

Going toward the Olympics, “we’re going to lead forward with service, because that’s what we do here,” Raney Norman said. “So many of us were here in 2002 and there was tremendous community benefit from 2002. We have outstanding venues. We have a ton of community programs. But I think we all kind of saw this bigger moment that was available to us because now our venues are built and we can really think bigger about what the community impact is.”