Utah Olympic organizers announce 9-figure fundraising effort for 2034 Winter Games

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Organizers of the Salt Lake City 2034 Winter Games announced a fundraising effort on Monday that they say is the largest philanthropic campaign supporting a host city in Olympic and Paralympic history.

The initiative, branded as Podium34, has raised more than $200 million and will fund community engagement programs surrounding the Games. It covers roughly a tenth of the $2.84 billion operating budget projected by organizers.

“We now launch what is the most impressive start to a Games this country, this world has even seen,” Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said at an event celebrating the initiative.

The announcement helps ease the worries of Olympic officials who had questioned whether the state could meet its fundraising goals just a few years after the U.S. hosts other major global sporting events.

The International Olympic Committee awarded Salt Lake City the 2034 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in July 2024, giving Utah its second Games after hosting in 2002. Utah’s capital city was the only candidate for 2034 after the Olympic committee gave it exclusive negotiating rights. Climate change and high operational costs have reduced the number of cities willing and able to welcome the Winter Games.

Nine of Utah’s wealthiest families and foundations have each pledged at least $20 million over the next nine years and were named founding captains of the project. Organizers said the donations will support efforts focused on education, youth sports, mental health, arts and culture, and other programs that capture the spirit of the Games. They hope to raise $300 million from the project.

Utah’s organizing committee is required by contract to wait until after the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles to bring in other sources of revenue, said Fraser Bullock, president and executive chair of the Salt Lake City 2034 committee.

“Our only source of revenue is donors,” he explained. “Without you, we would not be in business. We couldn’t start.”

Utah organizers are planning one of the most compact layouts in Olympic history, with all venues within a one-hour drive of the athletes’ village on the University of Utah campus. The plan requires no new permanent construction, with all 13 venues already in place from when the city first hosted. They have pledged not to use state tax money to host the Games, except for some funds used for maintaining Olympic venues also used by the public.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry said in a video message to donors that they are “taking the helm of something unprecedented” and sending a powerful message to the world that “together, we can build something greater than ourselves.”