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History

  • 1995

    First Hand Foundation established

    We helped our first child, providing case grant funding. In 1998, Nathan (pictured with our founder Neal Patterson) received funding.

  • 2000

    Love Bag program introduced

    We initially created this program to provide comfort items to children going through the foster system and have since expanded to offer this program to more children who face difficult circumstances.

  • 2006

    Healthe Kids Institute founded

    We established a second 501(c)(3) under the First Hand brand to focus on proactive population health programming, introducing several school health initiatives.

  • 2007

    First wellness screening conducted

    We completed our first free wellness screening at Barry Elementary School.

  • 2010

    First healthy lifestyle course completed

    The first high school class completed our healthy lifestyle program in the Blue Valley (Kansas) School District.

  • 2015

    20th anniversary celebrated

    At this point in our history, we had helped more than 200,000 children through all of our programs. Notably, we had awarded $20 million in individual medical grants for children's health.

  • 2018

    Social-emotional wellness program launched

    Middle school students in the Raytown, Missouri, School District participated in our comprehensive social-emotional wellness (mental well-being) program.

  • 2020

    First Hand expanded to Cerner Charitable Foundation

    Building on a 25-year history as First Hand, we expanded our mission and rebranded as Cerner Charitable Foundation.

  • 2023

    Cerner Charitable Foundation evolved to Oracle Health Foundation

    Following Oracle's acquisition of Cerner, we evolved into Oracle Health Foundation and continued striving toward our vision of an equitable world where individuals and communities thrive.

Our founders

Our Oracle Health Foundation (formerly First Hand) founders began with one vision in mind—to support the industry that Oracle knows so well while closing the gaps in healthcare with a focus on children. Today, the foundation continues to live out this vision of building healthier tomorrows and stronger communities around the world.

Jeanne Lillig-Patterson

Founder (1958—2017)

Jeanne created the vision, pouring her heart into the foundation and advocating for those—especially children—with medical and health needs.

"It's all about knowing what's the right thing to do. There needs to be a soul to a corporation."

Neal Patterson

Founder (1949—2017)

Neal provided incredible foresight, predicting how healthcare would evolve and how the foundation could make a difference, especially with technology leading the way.

"We wanted to make sure we gave back to our community. We decided to do it ourselves and created our own foundation called First Hand."

Cliff Illig

Founder

Cliff brought his experience building high-performing organizations and his commitment to the community, developing a new philanthropic model through the foundation.

"The objective has always been to do something meaningful; do something that makes a difference...for individual young people. Every one of them is special—every one of them has a great story."

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