Golisano Foundation

Golisano Foundation

Tom Golisano founded the Golisano Foundation in 1985 after scaling Paychex, the payroll-processing company he started in 1971 with $3,000 and a single Rochester office. The wealth that funds the foundation flows from Golisano's controlling stake in the publicly traded firm, which by the time he stepped down as CEO in 2004 had become a Fortune 1000 company serving hundreds of thousands of businesses. The foundation operates separately from Paychex as a private philanthropic entity focused exclusively on disability inclusion, with Golisano and his family maintaining direct governance control. The foundation deploys capital across a concentrated mix of program-related investments and traditional grants with a geographic anchor in upstate New York and southwest Florida. Core commitments center on healthcare infrastructure for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, evidenced by the Golisano Children's Hospitals in Rochester and Fort Myers and the Golisano Institute for Developmental Disability Nursing at St. John Fisher University. Education grants flow to inclusive higher-education programs at institutions including Nazareth University's Golisano Training Center and the Golisano Institute for Business and Entrepreneurship, which targets neurodiverse students. The foundation also places direct investments in health-tech and medical-device startups through a program-related investment vehicle that seeks market-rate returns alongside measurable social outcomes, co-investing on occasion with university-affiliated venture funds. The foundation has grown its presence in southwest Florida, opening a Naples office to parallel its Rochester headquarters and deepening its partnership with Lee Health and the Special Olympics Healthy Communities initiative. It also maintains a direct grantmaking relationship with Special Olympics International, where Golisano has served as a leading donor to the global health program. The Golisano Foundation manages the B. Thomas Golisano Foundation Fund at the Rochester Area Community Foundation, a separate endowed vehicle, and Ann Costello directs day-to-day operations. December 2023: The foundation pledged $5 million to the University of Rochester's Golisano Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Institute to expand lifespan-focused care models. The foundation's structural differentiator is its single-issue mandate executed with operating-foundation discipline. Unlike large generalist philanthropies that treat disability as a slice of a broader portfolio, the Golisano Foundation evaluates every grant, investment, and partnership through the lens of one question: whether it tangibly moves the needle on inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This focus creates an unusual posture for a family-derived foundation, resembling a specialized institutional investor more than a check-writing charity — it uses direct equity stakes, outcomes-based grant agreements, and multi-year institutional partnerships rather than one-time gifts.