Support HLS
Every contribution helps create opportunity, develop skilled professionals, and strengthen the future of America's maritime workforce.
Ready to Start a Donation Conversation?
If you already know what you would like to discuss, you can go directly to one of HLS's donation pathways. You do not need to have every detail assembled before reaching out.
Opportunity changes lives. Someone simply has to create it.
HLS Maritime Academy was founded on a simple belief: when education and opportunity come together, extraordinary futures become possible.
Every donor, partner, volunteer, mentor, and supporter can help create pathways that may change the course of a person's life.
Together, we can prepare skilled professionals, strengthen America's maritime workforce, and build opportunities that extend far beyond a single classroom.
Ways to Help
Building HLS will require more than one kind of support. There are many ways to help create opportunity and strengthen the future maritime workforce.
Ways to Give
Support can take many forms. Financial gifts, student sponsorships, corporate philanthropy, donated goods and services, and long-term planned gifts can each help build the people, programs, training environments, and opportunities required to create a durable maritime workforce pipeline.
Individual & Major Gifts
Individual philanthropy and major gifts can help support program development, training environments, instructors, technology, scholarships, student services, and other priorities essential to building HLS Maritime Academy.
Student Sponsorship
Student-focused support can help reduce barriers associated with training, credentialing, required documentation, equipment, transportation, and other costs that may stand between a capable student and a maritime career.
Corporate & Foundation Giving
Companies and foundations can support HLS through grants, sponsorships, workforce investments, educational resources, program support, and strategic partnerships aligned with maritime workforce development.
In-Kind & Corporate Contributions
Financial contributions are only one way companies and organizations can help build HLS. Products, materials, supplies, technology, professional services, food and hospitality resources, furnishings, safety gear, work apparel, transportation, logistics support, and other useful goods or services may directly support students, programs, facilities, and Academy operations.
Legacy & Planned Giving
Supporters interested in bequests, estate gifts, beneficiary designations, or other planned gifts are invited to begin a confidential conversation with HLS and their own professional advisors.
HLS Maritime Academy does not provide legal, tax, investment, appraisal, or estate-planning advice. Donors considering significant, non-cash, or planned gifts should consult their own qualified professional advisors regarding valuation, deductibility, documentation, and reporting requirements.
In-Kind Giving
Financial contributions are only one way companies, organizations, and individuals can help build HLS Maritime Academy.
Products, supplies, technology, building materials, furnishings, safety equipment, work apparel, food and hospitality resources, transportation, logistics support, professional services, and other useful goods or services may directly support students, training programs, facilities, and Academy operations.
HLS welcomes conversations with businesses of every size about product donations, surplus inventory, corporate giving programs, donated services, employee-led giving, and other resources that may advance the Academy's mission.
Every proposed contribution is evaluated individually to ensure that it can be responsibly accepted, effectively used, and aligned with the needs of HLS Maritime Academy.
Vessel Donations
Boats and vessels can represent far more than equipment. In the right setting, they can become classrooms, laboratories, training platforms, and opportunities for students to learn through real-world experience.
HLS welcomes conversations with owners who may be considering the donation of a boat, yacht, workboat, commercial vessel, or other maritime asset.
Depending on condition, configuration, operating requirements, and mission fit, donated vessels may support hands-on maritime training, vessel refit experience, Academy operations, instructional use, or other mission-aligned purposes.
Every potential vessel donation is reviewed individually to determine whether it can be responsibly accepted and effectively used in support of the Academy's mission.
Equipment Donations
Marine equipment, engines, generators, tools, electronics, welding equipment, safety systems, and other technical resources may still have tremendous educational value long after they have completed their original purpose.
HLS welcomes conversations with individuals, vessel owners, marine businesses, shipyards, manufacturers, ports, government agencies, and other organizations that may have equipment capable of supporting practical maritime education.
In the right training environment, donated equipment can help students develop technical confidence, practice troubleshooting and maintenance, understand real systems, and prepare for the equipment they will encounter throughout their careers.
Each proposed equipment donation is reviewed individually to determine whether it can be safely, responsibly, and effectively incorporated into the Academy's programs or operations.
Why It Matters
Early support helps build the foundation required to develop curriculum, recruit instructors, strengthen partnerships, prepare training environments, and create pathways for students to enter the maritime industry.
But the impact reaches further. A single opportunity can influence a career, a family, a community, and the people who follow.
501(c)(3) Nonprofit Organization
HLS Maritime Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions may be tax-deductible depending on applicable law and the donor's individual circumstances. Donors considering gifts of property, significant contributions, or planned gifts should consult their own qualified advisors regarding valuation, deductibility, documentation, and reporting requirements.
“Every meaningful journey begins with a single decision.”
Join Our Mission
It is built by individuals who choose to invest in people, believe in possibility, and help create opportunities that can shape lives for generations.
