Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation

About Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation

The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation’s recent giving is anchored by repeated, seven-figure support for nursing education at major research universities. In 2025, its largest recorded grant in the supplied data went to the Trustees of the University of Penn for nursing education, and the foundation made another large award to the same institution in 2024. That pattern points to a funder that supports nursing schools over time rather than making one-off awards. Across the recent grants list, the foundation backs university-based nursing programs, nursing research, and innovation tied to marginalized populations. It also extends beyond nursing in select cases, with grants for arts and social well-being and health research. The grantee list is dominated by established academic institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Johns Hopkins University, alongside a smaller set of community and field-specific organizations. Most awards are directed to U.S. recipients, and the pattern suggests a national grantmaker with especially strong ties to East Coast universities. The foundation’s portfolio shows a preference for institutional partners that can support training infrastructure, research capacity, and program development in nursing. Several grants recur across multiple years, indicating ongoing relationships with recipients rather than isolated project funding.

What Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation Funds

Nursing education is the clearest throughline in the foundation’s grantmaking. It gave $726,060 to Unc Chapel Hill for support nursing education in 2023 and $340,505 to University of NC at Chapel Hill for the same purpose in 2025. Johns Hopkins also appears on this theme, with $513,794 to Johns Hopkins Univ - Capable in 2023 and $225,414 to Johns Hopkins University in 2024 for nursing research. The foundation also funds innovation work tied to marginalized populations. It awarded $222,271 to The Pennsylvania State University in 2024 and $200,000 to The University of Texas at Austin in both 2023 and 2024 for innovation / marginalized populations. Health research appears as another strand, including $100,000 to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Cen in 2023 and again in 2025 for support health research. Beyond health, it made arts-related grants to Brooklyn Academy of Music for advance arts & social well being.

How Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation Gives