Aside from playing for the NBA, Dikembe Mutombo was a well-known humanitarian. He created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation to improve the living conditions in his native Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. His work earned him the NBA’s Jay Walter Kennedy Citizen Award in 2001 and 2009. Sports News named him as one of the good guys in sports in 1999 and 2000. In 1999, he was selected as one of 20 winners of the President’s Service Awards.

In 1997, the Mutombo Foundation began plans for a 300-bed hospital on the outskirts of his hometown. Ground was broken in 2001 but, construction didn’t start until 2004. The opening ceremonies were on September 2nd, 2006 and it was named the Biamba Maria Mutombo Hospital after his late mother who died of a stroke in 1997. 

In 2004, he participated in the Basketball Without Borders NBA program where NBA stars, such as Shawn Bradley, Malik Rose, and DeSagana Diop, toured Africa to spread the word about basketball and to improve the infrastructure. He ended up paying for the uniforms and expenses for the Zaire Women’s Basketball team during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. 

After retiring from the NBA in 2009, he became the first NBA’s Global Ambassador with former US President Barack Obama saying, “his work in the role changed the way athletes think about their impact off the court”. 

Mutombo was a long-time supporter of the Special Olympics and a member of the Special Olympics International Board of Directors. He was a pioneer of Unified Sports.  He played in the Unity Cup in South Africa before the 2010 World Cup quarter-finals and joined his second Unity Cup team in 2012.

On April 13th, 2011, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health gave him the Goodermote Humanitarian Award. In 2020, the Mutombo Foundation began construction of a modern pre-k through 6th grade school in the Democratic Republic of Congo named after his father who died in 2003. 

He was awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater Georgetown University in 2010.  He also received an honorary doctorate from Haverford College in May 2011.  In November 2015, he was a recipient of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Silver Anniversary Award for 2016, citing both his basketball career and his extensive humanitarian work. 

He won many honours and awards throughout the years but even though he passed away, his legacy will live on in the work that he has done.