Michael Jordan Gives $10 Million to UNC’s School of Social Work in Honor of His Mom

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Social Work unveiled two new signs on Monday afternoon.

One was temporary: an ice sculpture perched atop a table of shrimp and sushi and declaring “She gets it done!” over a portrait of Deloris P. Jordan. The other was permanent, announcing the Deloris P. Jordan Global Social Innovations Center.

The newly named center is the result of a $10 million donation from UNC-CH’s most famous alumnus, the basketball icon Michael Jordan, in honor of his mother, Deloris. It’s the largest gift in the School of Social Work’s history, the university said in a press release.

The bulk of the gift will expand the Global Social Innovations Center. It will provide UNC-CH students with internships at 25 sites across the globe, where they will support families in need while working with students and interdisciplinary teams at partner universities. One site is the Kenya Women and Children’s Wellness Centre, which Deloris Jordan founded in Nairobi in 2010. 

The rest of the gift will go toward scholarships for master’s of social work students and support the Jordan Institute for Families, which the Jordans founded in 1996 and whose sign sits just above the new one for the Jordan Global Social Innovations Center.

But the funding is only part of the story, Deloris Jordan said at a celebration announcing the gift. “My name is here. It wasn’t because of the money,” she said. “I think I’ve paid my time by being a part.”

She said she has been involved with the university since 1981, when her son was a freshman. The same year, John Turner became dean of the School of Social Work, the first Black dean in university history. He asked her for help, she said, and she’s been involved ever since, even serving on the school’s Board of Advisors since its creation.

Deloris Jordan recalled driving around campus with then-Chancellor Paul Harding in the early 1990s, when her son was in the midst of his first NBA championship three-peat, and stopping at street corners to tell students protesting in favor of creating the university’s first Black cultural center that things would be alright. 

A few years later, amid a second NBA championship three-peat, the Jordans funded the Jordan Institute for Families. It conducts research and training on family policy, including caregiving and maternal health, particularly in North Carolina.

The family’s dual focuses—one local, one global—mirror the School of Social Work’s own, said Dean Ramona Denby-Brinson.

“We’ve been very intentional about that,” she said. “We tried to take both of those visions and align those. How convenient that it matches with how the school operates—that we have a global program as well as amazing researchers who are working in all 100 counties in our state.”

The gift comes after a year of upheaval for both the field of social work and UNC-CH’s fundraising staff. 

Federal and state efforts to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have put social work programs in the spotlight. UNC-CH’s school was one of many in North Carolina to receive a waiver from the new ban. UNC System leaders have emphasized return on investment, as has the Trump administration, which can pose problems for social work, since  pay can be low. The median salary for social assistance jobs in North Carolina is just over $57,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jobs in child and family services average less than $45,000.

The low salaries have contributed to a statewide shortage of social workers. By the end of the decade, North Carolina is expected to need 30,000 more than it has, Denby-Brinson said, with rural areas hit particularly hard.

Meanwhile, the record windfall for the school comes after a recent restructuring of university development staff left many deans and fundraisers frustrated and unhappy, The Assembly reported in May. Fundraising totals dipped, satisfaction fell, and almost a sixth of the division left their jobs. Though the university raised near-record amounts last year, the executive overseeing the restructuring, Mike Andreasen, left his job in August.

But Deloris Jordan remained steadfast in her commitment to bolstering social work, Denby-Brinson said at the celebration.

“She is an unrelenting force for good,” Denby-Brinson said. “She gets things done. She does not take no for an answer. I don’t even think she takes maybe for an answer.”

“It’s not about giving, but can you measure what you give?” said Deloris Jordan. “Can you see the results when you stop? That’s what matters.”

But that will come later. In the meantime, the family–which included some of her children, grandchildren, and a great-grandchild on hand for the event–were ready to celebrate. (Michael Jordan couldn’t attend, but did send a surprise video message for his mother.)

At the end of the ceremony, officials wheeled out an 85th birthday cake for her. After singing, the crowd resumed eating shrimp and sushi as a DJ played classical renditions of hits like TLC’s “No Scrubs.”