Legacy Investments

Building on our earliest work.

Legacy | Clark Foundation

Overview

Prior to 2016, the Clark Charitable Foundation invested $78 million in nonprofit organizations and institutions of significance to Foundation leadership and the Clark family. During its sunset, the Clark Foundation provided strategic wind-down grants to many longstanding partners to support their continued success.

Focus Areas

Easton, MD

A man sits viewing signage displaying an architectural rendering of the A. James Clark Emergency Services Training Campus in Easton, Maryland.

Credit: Easton Volunteer Fire Department

The Clark Foundation honored Mr. Clark's belief that one should "give where you live" by making investments in his longtime home of Easton, Maryland. Its support was far-reaching, touching almost every aspect of life in the Easton community.

This new Academic Center represents a significant milestone in BAAM’s 20-year journey of empowering our youth and lifting our community from within. It is more than just a building — it’s a space where learning, growth and community come alive.

Dina Gomes Daly
Executive Director and Co-Founder, Building African American Minds

Featured Grantees

The Academy Art Museum, a white building shaded by trees, set against a blue sky with white clouds.

Academy Art Museum

The Academy Art Museum promotes the knowledge, practice, and appreciation of the arts and enhances cultural life on the Eastern Shore.
A teacher reads a book to students seated on a rug in a colorfully decorated classroom.

Building African American Minds

BAAM's Athletic and Academic Centers house tutoring programs, a tuition-free pre-K to third grade school, and adult education.
A woman and man view a detailed scale model of a historic boat in a museum exhibit.

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

The museum is dedicated to the preservation and exploration of the history, environment and culture of the Chesapeake Bay region.
Medical professionals standing beside advanced equipment in a hospital setting.

Memorial Hospital Foundation

The Clark Comprehensive Breast Care Center and the University of Maryland Shore Regional Medical Center at Easton will improve healthcare delivery across five counties on the Eastern Shore.

Higher Education

A group of smiling, waving graduates wearing blue caps and gowns stand on steps in front of a building at Georgetown University.

Credit: Georgetown University

Mr. Clark was able to pursue his dream of becoming an engineer because he received a full scholarship to the University of Maryland. He often spoke about how the education he received – and the doors it opened – profoundly shaped and changed the trajectory of his life.

I very much look forward to contributing with my day to day activities to add more bricks to this incredible construction that Mr Clark’s legacy will keep building for the years to come.

Francesco D'Acunto
A. James Clark Chair in Global Real Estate, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University

Featured Grantees

Carmen and Joe Del Guercio pose in front of a backdrop decorated with the Boston College logo.

Boston College

The Carmine and Maria Del Guercio Scholarship Fund at the Carroll School of Management will support 10 students each year in perpetuity.
A smiling graduate in cap and gown hugs another person while proudly holding their diploma during a graduation ceremony.

Georgetown University

The McDonough School of Business enhances societal well-being by equipping future leaders with the skills and values necessary to address complex regional and global challenges.

Medical

A mother holding and smiling at her baby in a hospital room.

Credit: Children’s National Hospital

The Clark Foundation’s investments in hospital facilities, training initiatives, research, and endowed professorships expanded access to high-quality healthcare in communities close to the Clark family’s heart.

One of the gifts that Joe Del Guercio and Courtney Clark Pastrick have given me was the idea that they were going to do something in brain cancer research that was going to make a difference.

Melanie Nussdorf
Philanthropist and close friend of the Clark family

Featured Grantees

A healthcare professional prepares to draw blood from a patient's arm. The smiling patient is seated in a comfortable hospital room.

Cleveland Clinic Indian River Foundation

The expansion of the Cleveland Clinic's emergency department and labor and delivery rooms will help create the best possible patient outcomes in Indian River County.
Signage for the Children's National Research Institute is displayed in the foreground, with the tan-colored building situated behind it under a blue sky.

Children's National Hospital

The Children's National Heart Center advances cardiac care through earlier disease detection, more accessible treatments and comprehensive wellness support.
Melanie Nussdorf, Joe Del Guercio and Ingo Mellinghoff, MD stand next to signage for The Lawrence C. Nussdorf Initiative in Glioblastoma Research.

Memorial Sloan Kettering

The Lawrence C. Nussdorf Initiative in Glioblastoma Research builds on recent advances in diagnostics and clinical drug discovery to improve survival rates and quality of life for people facing glioblastoma.
A welcoming hospital lobby with comfortable seating, a reception area, and natural light coming through large windows.

Suburban Hospital Foundation

Suburban Hospital's new campus supports innovative medical services, high-quality patient and family-centered care, advanced technology, and the education of future healthcare providers.

Cultural Institutions

An group of elementary schoolchildren raise their hands to answer a question from a teacher.

Credit: National Museum of American History | Smithsonian Institution

The Clark Foundation invested in several of the nation's landmark cultural institutions to expand students' access to educational programming and establish new professional development opportunities for teachers.

The depth of content was wonderful. The speakers were knowledgeable and the flow of the week was excellent. I am still pinching myself that I was able to do this. I feel like I am in a much stronger position to teach my new elective course after doing this.

Summer Teacher Workshop participant
National WWII Museum
An engraver etches the names 'A. James and Alice B. Clark' into a stone wall at the National Gallery of Art.

National Gallery of Art

An education and outreach endowment increases student access and supports digital initiatives, conservation science, research and outreach.
A collection of vintage World War II aircraft is suspended from the ceiling in the main gallery of the National WWII Museum.

National WWII Museum

The new SMART classroom at the museum's Hall of Democracy serves as an onsite and virtual classroom for students and a professional development space for teachers.
An group of elementary schoolchildren raise their hands to answer a question from a teacher. An engraver etches the names 'A. James and Alice B. Clark' into a stone wall at the National Gallery of Art. A collection of vintage World War II aircraft is suspended from the ceiling in the main gallery of the National WWII Museum. A museum educator leads an interactive learning session for enthusiastic parents and young children at a Smithsonian musem.

Smithsonian Institution

The Clark Excellence in Teaching Program at the National Museum of American History provides thousands of teachers with the skills, resources and tools they need to "do history" with their students.

Learn more

Our strategic direction was grounded in the values and beliefs at the heart of Mr. Clark's character.
About
A. James and Alice B. Clark attend an outdoor celebration at GWU. The Kennedy Center and the DC skyline are in the background.

Credit: George Washington University