Make A Gift

Bob and Lisa Margolis and the Margolis Family Foundation have demonstrated their commitment to the future of the Institute through a recent, generous new gift of $10 million that they hope will inspire others to invest in Duke-Margolis’s mission, programs, and sustainability. This commitment provides a special opportunity to spotlight the Institute’s impact and potential. 

The goal is to raise new endowment commitments that align with donors’ specific interests or support existing endowments at the Institute to provide sustainable funding for Duke-Margolis over the long term. Collectively, the newly established Robert and Lisa Margolis Family Foundation Fund, which will provide unrestricted, core support for the Institute, and new endowment commitments from others will help maximize the effectiveness and impact of the Institute at Duke and beyond. As the Institute’s core unrestricted endowment grows, so will its potential to further key education and research initiatives that influence health policy and help improve the quality of health care nationally and globally. Our aim is to raise $2 million a year over the next five years in endowment commitments for Duke-Margolis to build the Institute’s endowment to $20 million.

Endowments – Funding Amounts and Institute Priorities 

A gift commitment of $100,000 or more may establish a named endowment at the Institute providing unrestricted support for the greatest needs at Duke-Margolis. Donors may also establish a named endowment for a specific, restricted purpose at the Institute through a total commitment of $300,000 or more. Additionally, gifts of any amount to the Robert and Lisa Margolis Family Foundation Fund will allow donors to partner with the Margolis Family in providing unrestricted support for the Duke-Margolis Institute.

Priorities and needs, including but not limited to the following, can be supported through endowment giving:   

Educational Programming — Support for educational programs for undergraduates and graduate and professional students includes the Margolis Scholars Program, the Summer Experience internship program, and the Health Policy and Innovation Bass Connections theme.

Research – Flexible funding of health policy research enables Duke-Margolis investigators and faculty to respond to emerging health challenges and explore novel ideas in real time.

Fellowships – Fellowship funding enables post-graduates to participate in interdisciplinary health policy research through the Duke-Margolis Postdoctoral Program in Health Policy and the Health Equity Policy and Primary Healthcare Fellowship.

Unrestricted Support — This includes, among other things, funding for Institute priorities including health policy education programs and experiences for undergraduate and graduate students; the Institute’s work to engage faculty experts across disciplines at Duke; and its efforts to pilot new ideas and health policy research in biomedical innovation, health care transformation, and global health policy.

We hope you will consider making a gift to support the exciting work of the Duke-Margolis Institute. For ways to support Duke-Margolis, please contact Lauren McCrary, Associate Director of Development at Duke-Margolis, lauren.mccrary@duke.edu.

Duke-Margolis seeks to analyze and formulate health solutions. Our focus areas are transforming health care, driving biomedical innovation, and educating the next generation of health leaders. We also pursue emergent issues that will have significant impact on health care. We are seeking funding to support new student initiatives and scholarships focused on health policy, to expand Duke’s community of health policy researchers and faculty, and to establish a Duke Health Policy Action Fund which will provide start-up funds to support innovative health policy scholarship and solutions for the most pressing health care challenges.

The Duke-Margolis 2024 Emerging Initiatives include:

• Developing the Next-Generation Health Policy Workforce—Duke-Margolis is applying our health policy core competency framework to develop innovative educational programs to equip future health policy leaders with the necessary knowledge, skills, and attributes to anticipate and address complex health care issues effectively. Read more here.


• Cell and Gene Policy Initiative—These innovative therapies are beginning to provide new treatment options for patients with previously untreatable conditions, but limits in access and affordability risk reducing their potential to improve the lives of patients who would benefit most. The Duke-Margolis cell and gene therapy policy initiative will tackle key policy issues affecting the innovation, manufacture, regulation, patient outcomes, equitable access, and costs of cell and gene therapies. The goal: advance evidence-based, practical solutions to help ensure equitable and efficient access to these promising treatments. Read more here.


• Expanding and Spreading State-Based Transformation in and Beyond North Carolina to Improve Health in the South—Duke-Margolis will expand its partnerships to advance health care transformation in North Carolina through rapid response research and policy analysis, evaluation and evidence generation to improve payment and delivery reforms, and stakeholder engagement to assure all perspectives contribute to progress. Read more here. 


• Enabling the Digital Health Revolution—The goal of the emerging Duke-Margolis digital health portfolio is to shape responsible and inclusive digital health and AI policies that foster innovation and improve health while safeguarding patients. Our growing work will address the digital health revolution across multiple fronts, including regulations, payment, safety, effectiveness, and equity. Read more here.


• Strengthening Public Health and Health Care Partnerships for the Future—Duke-Margolis has proposed steps to leverage public and private efforts to improve the health of the nation. This approach reflects growing opportunities for public-private collaborations to enable health care systems to be more prepared and resilient to address health risks in local communities. Importantly, these steps build on current policies to advance payment and care reforms that help health care organizations advance population health. Read more here.

We hope you will consider making a gift to support the exciting work of the Duke-Margolis Institute. For ways to support Duke-Margolis, please contact Lauren McCrary, Associate Director of Development at Duke-Margolis, lauren.mccrary@duke.edu.