Mat-Su Health Foundation (Wasilla, AK)

The Mat-Su Health Foundation has increased its annual grant award to the Mat-Su Trails and Parks Foundation to $550,000 per year for 10 years. This award doubles MSHF’s previous commitment, and it enables the Trails and Parks Foundation to increase its own grantmaking, build its capacity by hiring a Development Director, and begin building an endowment to ensure the organization’s sustainability.

The Mat-Su Health Foundation began funding the Mat-Su Parks and Trails Foundation in 2012 as a way to ensure that trails and parks projects throughout the borough were approached in a coordinated way. With this increase in funding to the Mat-Su Trails and Parks Foundation, the Mat-Su Health Foundation will no longer accept grant applications related to public trails or parks. Organizations seeking this type of funding will be directed to the Mat-Su Trails and Parks Foundation, where they will be evaluated in the context of the entire trails and parks system.

Contact: Robin Minard
Phone: 907.352.2892
Email: rminard@healthymatsu.org

Austin-Bailey Health and Wellness Foundation (Canton, OH)

The Austin-Bailey Health and Wellness Foundation approved grants totaling $140,900 to 10 nonprofit organizations. The foundation supports programs that promote the physical and mental well-being of the people residing in Holmes, Stark, Tuscarawas, and Wayne Counties, Ohio. Those receiving grants include:

  • Access Health Stark County—for community education for ACA health insurance enrollment. ($2,000)
  • Canton Museum of Art—for art therapy to heal those with behavioral challenges. ($5,800)
  • Compassion Delivered—for kitchen wares and a refrigerator for meal delivery to those with serious illnesses. ($6,000)
  • House of Loreto—to purchase furniture for a renovated palliative care facility. ($53,700)
  • Love Center Food Pantry—to purchase food for families in need. ($8,000)
  • Ronald McDonald House—to support temporary housing costs for families with children at Akron Children’s Hospital. ($12,000)
  • St. Luke Lutheran Community—to purchase a Biodex Balance System to improve balance and reduce falls. ($14,000)
  • Stark State College Foundation—to purchase and install sinks in their new Ophthalmic Clinic. ($25,200)
  • Tuscarawas Clinic for the Working Uninsured—to supplement the salary of a part-time physician assistant. ($10,000)
  • Whispering Grace Horses—to purchase a mechanical horse to assess the capabilities of new students. ($4,200)

In addition, Austin-Bailey provides $4,000 scholarships to students at Aultman College, Kent State University Stark, Kent State University Tuscarawas, Malone University, Stark State College, University of Mount Union, Walsh University, and Wayne College. Recipients of those scholarships are all engaged in health related studies. Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine also received $11,000 for two scholarships. 

The foundation has two grant cycles each year. The deadline for submitting requests for the next grant cycle is June 7, 2018.

Contact: Don Sultzbach
Email: abfdn@sbcglobal.net

The Humana Foundation (Louisville, KY)

The Humana Foundation, philanthropic arm of Humana Inc., announced the details of its planned health-focused community investing work for 2018 in its headquarters hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and seven additional communities where the foundation intends to make significant investments this year.

Through the foundation’s new Strategic Community Investments work, it will invest $6.5 million in nonprofit organizations operating in eight communities: Louisville, Kentucky; San Antonio, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Knoxville, Tennessee; Tampa Bay, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; and Broward County, Florida. Each investment will be no smaller than $500,000. These are all communities where Humana Inc., in 2015, began pursuing its 2020 ‘Bold Goal’ to improve the health of the communities the foundation serves 20 percent by 2020. Organizations that receive a Humana Foundation Strategic Community Investment in 2018 will have an opportunity to receive continuing funding for one or two additional years, based on the specific results they achieve over a 12-month period.

Also starting in 2018, the Humana Foundation has begun to identify partner organizations—at the national, regional and local level—because joining forces with like-minded entities can result in more impactful, broad-based, and sustainable change. The foundation’s focus for Louisville strategic investments will be on nonprofit organizations that help residents achieve post-secondary success and asset security. In Bold Goal communities, Humana’s investments will address with the social determinants of health, with a focus on food security and social connection.

In addition, through its new Headquarters Hometown Community Relations initiative, the Humana Foundation will award an additional $2 million to Louisville, Kentucky-area organizations in 2018, with slightly more than $1 million of that in grants ranging from $25,000 up to a maximum of $100,000. Also as part of this program, nearly $1 million will go to established foundation partners such as Metro United Way and the Fund for the Arts. And, building on 2017 when Humana employees reported volunteering 108,000 hours in the Louisville, Kentucky area, the foundation will incorporate a significant new skills-based volunteerism component into the Community Relations initiative. This will result in more Humana employees in Louisville, Kentucky putting their strongest business skills to work for area nonprofits. The focus for these grants will be organizations providing critical safety-net services as well as those focused on civic and cultural opportunities.

Lastly, the foundation will award an additional $5.5 million in 2018 through an array of popular long-standing programs such as its matching-gifts program for Humana employees, Humana Foundation scholarships to children of employees, and disaster-relief support, for example. The foundation has increased its matching gifts for all Humana employees in 2018 who choose to take advantage of the program.

The $14 million in total planned philanthropy for 2018 represents the most the Humana Foundation has contributed in a year, and is approximately 20 percent more than the foundation gave in 2017, when it awarded $11.6 million – which also represented the foundation’s highest-ever one-year giving total.

Contact: Anna Hobbs
Phone: 512.221.6378
Email: ahobbs4@humana.com

The Knapp Foundation (Weslaco, TX)

To encourage emerging partners to improve wellness in the Mid-Valley, Texas area, Knapp Community Care Foundation has funded 14 projects. These projects are helping strengthen relationships within the foundation’s surrounding community. Those awarded are: 

  • Access Esperanza Clinics, Inc.—for the Access to Diabetes Assessment Project. ($257,100)
  • The Boys and Girls Club of Weslaco, Inc.—for the Triple Play & Healthy Habits Extension Program. ($60,000)
  • City of Weslaco—for the Weslaco Northside Park Complex. ($250,000)
  • Dentists Who Care—for the DWC Mobile Unit in Mid-Valley. ($165,000)
  • El Milagro Clinic—for Diabetes Reduction, Education & Awareness in the Mid-Valley. ($400,000)
  • Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley—for RGV Mobile Produce and Prevention. ($66,036)
  • Knapp Medical Center—for Indigent Care Agreement. ($3,000,000)
  • South Texas College—for Community Health Project. ($50,000)
  • South Texas Juvenile Diabetes Association—for the STJDA Extension Project. ($103,500)
  • Su Casa de Esperanza—for HealthFit For Life. ($51,693)
  • Texas A&M University Health Science Center-School of Public Health—for The Role of Maternal Diabetes & Obesity in Reproductive Health Outcomes. ($349,640)
  • The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston—for Shared Measurement System. ($20,000)
  • The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley—for Screening High-Risk Families for Diabetes to Establish a Genomic Research Center in the Mid-Valley. ($1,989,727)
  • Valley Nature Center—for Quest Outdoor Summer Camps. ($100,000)

Each of these grants will advance the community and empower community leaders to steer the charge for a healthier lifestyle.

Contact: Christina Yepez
Phone: 956.854.4534
Email: christina@knappccf.com

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation (Detroit, MI)

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation recently awarded thirteen research grants to Michigan researchers. Among the grantees are:

  • Henry Ford Health System, Rachel Lee, MD—to explore factors that affect emergency physicians’ preparedness to care for transgender patients, as well as compile recommendations to improve care. ($8,030)
  • Hurley Medical Center, Thair Dawood, MD—to enhance key recommended physician monitoring practices via an educational and information technology intervention. ($10,000)
  • St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Mary Margaret Brandt, MD—to determine the value of screening for urinary tract infections in elderly fall patients. ($9,985)
  • University of Michigan, Lindsay Admon, MD—to assess the health outcomes, health care utilization, and expenditures among women with medically complicated pregnancies. ($10,000)
  • University of Michigan, Ryan Howard, MD—to develop and implement evidence-based guidelines for prescribing opiates after four general surgery procedures in an effort to reduce the amount of opioids entering the community. ($10,000)
  • University of Michigan, Deborah Kaye, MD—to evaluate the effectiveness of Medicare’s Readmission Reduction Program on patients with private insurance across the State of Michigan. ($10,000)
  • University of Michigan, Monica Konerman, MD, MSc—to assess the prevalence and potential predictors of opioid prescription use among patients with chronic liver disease, and characterize the impact of prescription opioid use among the targeted population. ($10,000)
  • University of Michigan, Sarah Shubeck, MD—to determine high cost surgical patients and evaluate strategies to control costs. ($10,000)
  • University of Michigan, Davraj Sukul, MD—to identify drivers of variation in a 90-day episode spending for acute myocardial infarction treated with percutaneous coronary intervention. ($10,000)
  • University of Michigan, Valerie Vaughn, MD—to quantify the burden of over-diagnosis of pneumonia in Michigan hospitals. ($10,000)
  • University of Michigan, Amber Young, MD—to investigate the impact of physical exercise by determining the feasibility and acceptability of using a physical activity tracker to monitor activity in systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients and determining the association between increased physical activity and functional capacity in subjects with SSc. ($10,000)
  • Wayne State University, Aaron Brody, MD—to contact and reassess the cardiac health of patients diagnosed with subclinical hypertensive heart disease (SHHD) to determine the rate of progression from SHHD to Heart Failure. ($10,000)
  • Wayne State University, Arash Javanbakht, MD—to implement and evaluate a program of using dance, art, and yoga therapies to address the negative consequences of stress and trauma among refugee women and children. ($10,000)

Contact: Nora Maloy
Phone: 313.225.8205
Email: nmaloy@bcbsm.com

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