Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey

Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey (HFNJ) was formed in 1996 when Lester Z. Lieberman, former CEO of Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, structured the hospital's sale proceeds into an endowed foundation. Rather than distributing the corpus, the board elected to build a permanent capital base to address healthcare disparities across Essex County, New Jersey, and the MetroWest Jewish community. Current Board Chair Amy B. Schechner, a former Deputy Attorney General of New Jersey, and CEO Michael Schmidt lead the foundation’s dual mandate. The foundation remains a primary grantor to its original hospital partner and a founding member of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest NJ, with whom it shares investment committee leadership. The foundation’s investment strategy spans venture capital, growth equity, buyouts, secondaries, and fund-of-funds commitments. HFNJ pursues direct early-stage and seed investments alongside late-stage expansion and fund commitments, covering the full lifecycle from startup to buyout. Sector focus remains concentrated in healthcare and related life sciences, reflecting the wealth origin. Confirmed co-investors and partners include Marc E. Berson, chairman of Fidelco Realty Group, and Gary Aidekman, a founding investment committee member who also sits on the board of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). The foundation maintains active memberships in the Council on Foundations and Grantmakers In Health, and HFNJ’s Marcy Felsenfeld serves as a trustee of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers. The foundation operates from its headquarters at 60 East Willow Street in Millburn, New Jersey. Its investment committee, led by founding members including Gary Aidekman, oversees the securities and investment portfolio alongside cash equivalents. The organization is not a multi-family office and does not manage outside capital; all investment returns feed back into the grantmaking endowment. Its partnership with the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest NJ provides a co-investment and professional network, while the board structure ties directly to New Jersey’s legal, healthcare, and real estate communities through members like Berson and Schechner. Structurally, HFNJ is a rare hybrid: a health-conversion foundation that kept an active, diversified investment operation rather than outsourcing entirely to an OCIO or relying on a simple indexed portfolio. This active posture — direct venture and growth exposure combined with grantmaking — gives the foundation a direct-investing capacity unusual among endowed health grantmakers of its size, a configuration shaped by the business-building DNA of Lieberman and the fiduciary sophistication of a board drawn from law, real estate, and investment management.