Donovan Mitchell has used one of the biggest philanthropic commitments of his career to give future students the same type of opportunity that helped shape his own life.
Mitchell and his family pledged $12 million to Greenwich Country Day School in Connecticut, the school he attended as a child and graduated from in 2012. The commitment, first announced in 2020, was the largest single pledge in the school’s history and was designed to support a new athletic facility, scholarships and faculty programming.
For Mitchell, the connection is deeply personal. His younger sister Jordan also attended Greenwich Country Day, while his mother, Nicole, taught at the school for more than a decade. Mitchell has repeatedly explained that receiving financial assistance himself helped make private-school education possible for him, and that experience became the foundation of his decision to give back.
“I went to private school growing up. I was very fortunate to be able to get a scholarship myself to go to private school,” Mitchell said. “For me, being able to use my platform to help Black and Brown children be able to attend private school who can’t afford it.”
A significant portion of the pledge helped fund the Donovan Mitchell Family Athletic Center, known as “The DON.” The facility includes a full-sized NCAA basketball court that can be divided into two high-school courts. Mitchell returned to Greenwich Country Day in October 2024 to officially inaugurate the building and take the ceremonial first shot on its court.
But Mitchell has emphasized that the gym was only part of the purpose.
“A lot of it obviously goes toward building the gym for the school, but also giving scholarships to kids, whether it’s from New York, Norwalk, Bridgeport, that have the grades, have the ability, just don’t have the means to go to private school,” he said.
Those scholarships have already had a tangible impact. Greenwich Country Day highlighted students who attended the school through the Mitchell family’s scholarship program, including one recipient who described the opportunity as transformative both academically and personally.
Mitchell’s approach makes the $12 million pledge different from a traditional athlete donation centered solely on sports facilities. Basketball provided part of the vehicle, but access to education was at the center of the commitment.
“I was given the opportunity to do that,” Mitchell said. “I’m looking to continue to build as my years continue to go, and hopefully one day when I’m done playing, I’m a coach there or something like that. But I think the biggest thing is just being able to provide for my people.”
Donovan Mitchell says he pledged $12,000,000 to his former private school to build a gym and provide scholarships for kids who can’t afford tuition
“I went to private school growing up. I was very fortunate to be able to get a scholarship myself to go to private school. For me,… pic.twitter.com/vqPW1qNws0
— dank (@cptdankkk) August 12, 2026
Years after making the pledge, Mitchell is already seeing the project move from promise to reality.
There is now a gym carrying his family’s name, students receiving opportunities through scholarships, and a direct link between the help Mitchell once received and the help he is now providing.
For one of the NBA’s biggest stars, that may ultimately be the most meaningful part of the investment: not simply leaving his name on a building, but creating a path through it for someone else.
