Who paid for the Obama Presidential Center? Donors include Jeff Bezos

• The Obama Presidential Center opens June 19.
• The Obamas and musical guests like Stevie Wonder will appear at the June 18 grand opening ceremony.
• The center is paid for through private donations.

A decade and hundreds of millions of dollars in the making, the Obama Presidential Center opens to the public on June 19.

The center touts a museum, a Chicago Public Library branch and more. Throughout the sprawling 19.3 acre-campus, visitors will find dedicated spaces thanks to specific donors.

In fact, the grand opening ceremony, where former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama are expected to speak, will take place on the John Lewis Plaza. The donor responsible for it? Amazon founder and Forbes' fourth-richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos.

Here is what else to know about the center's funding as it opens its doors:

Who paid for the Obama Presidential Center?

The presidential center was paid for through private donations.

It cost $850 million in total, up from a projected $500 million when the foundation broke ground in 2021.

In addition to the privately sourced $850 million, $123.3 milion of Chicago and Illinois government money has gone towards capital projects in the area, like remaking the roads and some green space around the center, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Donors include Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey and Shonda Rhimes

Some of the spaces around the museum are named not after the donors themselves, but after other changemakers and honorees.

"He said, 'I stand on a lot of shoulders of people who came before me,'" Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett said of Obama on June 3. "In fact, you will see we have what we call honoree namings, and so people who have made donations to us have been able to name spaces....after people upon whose shoulders we stand."

Here are some of the honoree names around the campus and their donors:

• Our Story Atrium, made possible by Oprah Winfrey. (Winfrey also has a courtyard named after her, funded by Daniel E. Levin).
• John Lewis Plaza, funded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos made a $100 million donation to the Obama Foundation, it announced in 2021. He would later go on to donate to President Donald Trump's inauguration committee as one of several tech executives who attended.)
• The Oval Office replica was funded by Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the political thriller show with many dramatic Oval Office scenes, "Scandal."
• Prudential Financial donated for A More Inclusive America exhibit in the museum, in honor of Alvin Ailey.
• Melvin and Monique Rodriguez, the duo that created hair product company Mielle, donated for the John H. Johnson Plaza Overlook.
• Exelon funded the Imagine Your Impact exhibit in the museum.
• The Chicago-based McDonald's Corporation donated to the Herman Petty Program Room.

The Obama Foundation also publishes a list of contributors annually, though some are still kept anonymous. You can find the available list here.

Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected]. Follow her on X (Twitter), Threads, Bluesky and TikTok.