Two nurses from the CAPABLE program converse with a patient in her home.

Photo courtesy of CAPABLE

Our

Approach

to Grantmaking

We invest in innovative, bold, and creative solutions that address significant health and healthcare problems in new ways.

We work hard to be good partners – not just patrons – and strive to create a vibrant community of grantees, innovators, and colleagues who can learn, work, and grow together.

A nurse sits at a desk looking intently at a computer screen.

Photo by Toni Greaves

Our

Invitation

We seek programs that reimagine care and innovators who possess the rigor and creativity to deliver on that vision. We welcome applications from a wide variety of institutions and from investigators representing a diverse range of backgrounds.

We believe that transformative ideas are as likely to come from community health clinics as they are from major academic research centers.

We welcome projects and ideas that embody the criteria below.

A nurse stands in an empty field with a windmill in the background

Photo by Eric M. Johnson

Our

History

For over thirty years, we have worked to improve health through nursing. What began as a regional effort to elevate bedside care in New York City, has grown over time in scope, depth, and focus, always driven by a guiding respect for the dignity of the patient.

Rita Hillman with unidentified nursing students

From early on, Alex and Rita Hillman shared a passion for art. A successful publisher of popular magazines, Alex confided to friends that he spent most of his time “trying to make enough money to buy pictures.” After the Second World War, he was appointed a government administrator for the Marshall Plan, and on trips to Europe he and Rita discovered and acquired a number of masterworks, by artists including Matisse, Braque, Miró, Manet, Renoir, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec. In the words of longtime friend and neighbor Stephen Lash, chairman emeritus of Christie’s Americas, these were purchases made “with judgment, discernment and an instinct for quality, and without ever addressing the investment potential of the works they loved.”

Karl Katz, whose friendship with Alex and Rita began in 1961 when he was the chief curator of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, says of the Hillman collection:

The art—thoughtful, exuberant, strict, imaginative, generous—is very much like the people who bought it. The art in their comfortable apartment was never there to impress. It was there precisely because the Hillmans wanted to live with these works of art, and Rita and Alex were very happy to let their guests enjoy them, just as they did the conversation, the companionship, and the food.

During the 1960s, Alex and Rita supplied works from their collection for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Summer Loan Exhibitions. They commissioned public sculptures for Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School.

In 1966, they established the Hillman Family Foundation to manage the collection. After Alex died, in 1968, Rita became president of the Foundation, which she renamed the Alex Hillman Family Foundation in her husband’s memory. For the next three decades, she walked the 29 blocks from her Park Avenue apartment to her Rockefeller Center office, no matter the weather.

In the 1970s, the Foundation lent many of the collection’s important pieces to smaller museums and university galleries in regional centers that otherwise had limited access to such works. Between 1979 and 1985, these paintings, known as the Hillman Collection, toured 10 different states in the South, Southwest and Midwest. The Foundation also established the Hillman Periodical Fund at the Museum of Modern Art, which was used to acquire several canonical works. As the century drew to a close, several of the Hillmans’ most important pieces were regularly installed at the Metropolitan Museum and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where millions of visitors had the opportunity to enjoy them.

Under Rita’s leadership, the foundation expanded its reach. In 1974, Rita became a founding trustee of the International Center of Photography. She went on to become chairman of the board, honorary chairman, and unofficial ambassador-at-large. She also served as vice chairman of the board of the Brooklyn Academy of Music and was a member of its executive committee for more than three decades. (Of her tenure at BAM, Karl Katz once noted, “Though she claims that much of what she sees and hears there is not necessarily her cup of tea, she feels it is exceedingly important to support the arts and to encourage a diversity of creative people.”)

In 1989, Rita emerged from a serious illness with a deepened appreciation for the role of nurses. (Rita had valued nursing since her first contact with nurses, as a child, during her father’s long illness.) In a prescient move that would chart a new course for the Foundation, she decided to sell the Picasso masterpiece “Mother and Child” at auction, and with the proceeds she established the first Hillman Scholarship Program for Nursing in 1990. Seeking to address a city- and country-wide nursing shortage, the program was piloted at the University of Pennsylvania, where Scholar nurses received financial and other support for their education, in return for working two years at a New York City hospital. Similar projects at the New York University School of Nursing, the Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing, and Lenox Hill Hospital soon followed.

Rita oversaw the expansion of these programs to include externships and post-graduate clinical mentoring. They also featured recruiting efforts to attract pre-college students as well as those seeking a mid-career change. In addition, Rita wanted Hillman Scholars to remain connected throughout their professional lives, and so in 1996 she funded the creation of the Hillman Alumni Nursing Network, which "works to maintain and improve patient care through networking, educational opportunities, and media support."

A recipient of the prestigious American Journal of Nursing’s Beatrice Renfield Caring for the Caregiver Award, Rita watched with pride as Hillman Scholars gained a reputation throughout New York for clinical excellence. She was a devoted presence at Scholar events and delighted in meeting young “Hillmans,” whom she regarded as part of her extended family. When thanked by grateful students for her support, she would humbly reply, “No, thank you. For all that you do and all that you will do."

By the time of her death, in 2007 at the age of 95, nearly 1,500 nurses had completed or enhanced their education through Hillman scholarships and clinical mentoring programs. Rita’s commitment to nursing continues to make a difference not only in the lives of the nurses and institutions she funded but to the patients of New York City who benefit from the expert care of her beloved Hillman nurses.

After Rita’s death, one of the first acts of the Board of Directors was to rename the organization the Rita & Alex Hillman Foundation, to honor the two passionate, generous, and indefatigable people who made its existence possible.

Our

People

Foundation Staff

Board of Directors

David A. Gould, PhD, President

Kristen Choi, PhD, MS, RN

Arthur Chu

Lizanne Fontaine, Esq., RN

Paul Garfinkle

Peter Hammack

Jennifer Mieres, MD, FACC, FANC, FAHA

Ahrin Mishan, MPA, MA

Privacy Notice

To help us in the evaluation and analysis of projects, all proposals, documents, communications, and associated materials submitted to The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation (collectively, “Submission Materials”) will become the property of the Foundation and will be shared with other members of the Advisory Committee, Board of Directors, and other funding partners or potential funding partners. We will report publicly on the number of applications received.
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The proposals, in addition to analysis by our staff and consultants, may be subject to confidential external review by independent subject-matter experts, potential co-funders, and (for educational purposes only) participants in the Hillman Scholars Program for Nursing Innovation. Please carefully consider the information included in the Submission Materials. If you have any doubts about the wisdom of disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we recommend you consult with legal counsel and take any steps you deem necessary to protect your intellectual property. You may wish to consider whether such information is critical for evaluating the submission, and whether more general, non-confidential information may be adequate as an alternative for these purposes.
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We respect confidential information we receive. Nonetheless, notwithstanding your characterization of any information as being confidential, we may publicly disclose all information contained in Submission Materials to the extent as may be required by law and as is necessary for potential co-funders and external reviewers to evaluate them and the manner and scope of potential funding, consistent with appropriate regulations and their internal guidelines and policies.

Alongside our focus on nursing and healthcare is a deep concern for

‍social justice and human dignity.

social justice and

human dignity.

driven innovations that promote

equitable, person-centered,

and trustworthy care.

Our

Approach

to Change

Our

Approach

to Grantmaking

Our

Invitation

Our

History

Our