The Hackerman Foundation

Engaged in an Ever-Changing World

The Hackerman Foundation is a private Maryland-based philanthropy that helps facilitate significant advancement for underrepresented groups who need additional funding to create impactful economic and social change.

  • boy with glasses seated at a school desk engaged in drawing

    Arts and Education

  • female physician checking a patient's blood pressure

    Health

  • row of colorful townhouses along a street

    Housing

  • women holding books smiling at the camera

    Economic Empowerment

Our Areas
of Focus

Share Your
Initiative

We partner with Maryland-based nonprofit organizations to make meaningful contributions that honor our legacy and resonate with our foundation’s mission. Our main areas of focus currently live within underserved populations including arts and education, health, housing, and economic empowerment.

There is no set formula when it comes to gifts and grants from our foundation. If we connect with a cause, we will proudly partner to help create real outcomes. By staying open to opportunities that resonate with us, as well as employing an expedient approval process, we can react more effectively—since time is often of the essence.

Impact
Spotlight

The Foundation believes strongly in its ability to make a meaningful change through its giving efforts. Here are a few cases of notable impact in and around our communities.

speaker standing at a podium during a police press conference

Breitlight Justice Project

A GBMC physician preserved slide evidence of more than 2,000 sexual assaults dating back to 1977. In 2019, the Hackerman Foundation made a $300,000 grant to the Baltimore County Police Department to expedite testing of 259 slides—which resulted in the identification of seven suspects, including one individual charged with five rapes, and a push to test remaining evidence by the end of 2024.

kids in school smiling at the camera

Student Support Network

The Student Support Network provides meals and supplies to disadvantaged students at Baltimore County Public Schools. In 2019, they partnered with the Hackerman Foundation, and have since grown their impact to 4,543 students across 21 schools.

four women laughing together

Reproductive Health

In 2023, the Hackerman Foundation expanded support of women’s access to reproductive health, including abortion care, with grants to the Women’s Health Center of Maryland and Planned Parenthood Maryland. We were also proud to join the nationally impactful Collaborative for Gender and Reproductive Equity.

A Legacy of Giving

The Hackerman Foundation comes from a long line of generational giving that began with a vision from husband and wife team, Willard Hackerman and Lillian Patz Hackerman in the spirit of their parents, and even their parents’ parents.

Each generation has devoted generous amounts of time and funding to various institutions with a particular focus on underserved and underseen communities. Since her parents’ passing, their daughter Nancy Hackerman has taken the helm. She remains steadfast in honoring the vision of her parents while also staying nimble enough to meet the needs of communities today.