The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation (Owings Mills, MD)
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation announced $1.2 million in grants to 42 summer programs as part of $3.15 million in total grant support from the Baltimore Summer Funding Collaborative, which funds high-quality summer programs for the city’s children and youth in low-income families.
The Summer Funding Collaborative—in addition to the Weinberg Foundation—includes the Abell Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Clayton Baker Trust, France-Merrick Foundation, The Hinkey-Benson Family Fund, Joseph & Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds, Lockhart Vaughan Foundation, the Mayor’s Office of Human Services, and Under Armour.
Despite individual missions and priorities that include literacy; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM); youth employment; environmental education; sports; and the arts, all 12 members of the Collaborative share the same goal: to reduce summer learning loss and ensure more youth have the chance to reach their full potential during the summer and beyond.
The following organizations will be funded specifically by the Weinberg Foundation:
- Access Art
- Afya Baltimore
- Archbishop Borders School
- Art with a Heart
- Associated Catholic Charities
- Baltimore Curriculum Project
- Baltimore Urban Leadership Foundation (The Door)
- The Baltimore Youth Alliance
- Baltimore Youth Arts
- Beat the Streets – Baltimore
- Bon Secours Baltimore Health System Foundation
- City Neighbors Foundation
- Civic Works
- Dent Education
- Dew More Baltimore
- Digital Harbor Foundation
- Full Gospel Fellowship Church of Deliverance
- Green Street Academy
- Harlem Lacrosse
- Humanim
- Koinonia Baptist Church
- Liberty Elementary School
- Living Classrooms
- Macedonia Life Community Development Corporation
- Maryland New Directions
- MdBio Foundation
- Next One Up Foundation
- Patterson Park Public Charter School
- Paul’s Place
- P.O.P. (Play on Purpose)
- Reconstruct & Rebuild
- Soccer Without Borders
- Southeast Community Development Corporation
- SquashWise
- St. Francis Neighborhood Center
- St. Veronica Roman Catholic Church
- St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore
- Village Learning Place
- Wide Angle Youth Media
- YMCA of Central Maryland
Contact: Craig Demchak
Phone: 410.654.8500
Email: cdemchak@hjweinberg.org
Tufts Health Plan Foundation (Watertown, MA)
Tufts Health Plan Foundation is investing $250,000 over the next five years to accelerate Massachusetts’ age-friendly efforts. Tufts Health Plan Foundation is the only regional funder focused solely on healthy aging, supporting efforts to build communities that thrive and work for people of all ages.
More than 100 Massachusetts communities—in rural, suburban, and urban areas—have already adopted policies and practices to make their cities and towns better places for all residents, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background. This funding will build on recommendations emerging from the Governor’s Council’s blueprint and broader partnerships that are working on the age-friendly plan.
Governor Baker accepted a certificate recognizing Massachusetts’ entry into AARP’s Network of Age-Friendly States. Massachusetts is one of only two states in this network.
Contact: Alrie McNiff Daniels
Phone: 857.304.3338
Email: alrie_daniels@tufts-health.com
St. David’s Foundation (Austin, TX)
St. David’s Foundation unveiled a new initiative to increase the availability of community park facilities. Created as a way to encourage healthy outdoor activity across Central Texas, grants totaling over $1 million have been made to support current and future community opportunities to be active. The foundation has joined with the Austin Parks Foundation and the Trust for Public Land to enhance existing parks and to launch a multi-year effort to provide increased activity options across Central Texas. Grants were made to the following entities to create and support opportunities to be active across the community:
- Austin Parks Foundation—for maintenance of splash pad at Butler Park; a playground replacement at Edward Rendon Sr. Park at Festival Beach; a shade structure at Martin Neighborhood Pool; and a playscape replacement at Parque Zaragoza.
- Barton Springs Conservancy—for bathhouse renovation at Barton Springs pool.
- Downtown Austin Alliance/Austin Parks Foundation—for programming at Republic Square Park.
- Keep Austin Beautiful—to create outdoor recreation space at LBJ High School.
- Pease District Conservancy—for outdoor exercise equipment at Pease Park.
- Shoal Creek Conservancy—for Shoal Creek Trail connectivity planning and implementation.
- Trail Foundation—for bilingual signage/maps and trail counter on eastern Butler Trail.
- The Trust for Public Land—for the Healthy Parks Plan in Travis, Bastrop, and Caldwell, Texas counties.
- Waller Creek Conservancy—for year-round physical activity programming at Palm Park.
- YMCA of Austin—for portable outdoor fitness facility, Fisherman’s Park in Bastrop County, Texas.
Contact: Kristy Ozmun
Phone: 512.474.1501
Email: kristy@ozmun.com
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation (Los Angeles, CA)
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation approved six grants totaling more than $13 million during the first quarter of 2018. These grants were awarded to organizations spanning across the Hilton Foundation’s priority areas, serving the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people both in the United States and internationally. Following is an overview of grants awarded:
- The Door – A Center for Alternatives, Inc.—to support the Academy program, which provides high school education, robust college access, and employment pathways for foster youth in New York City. ($825,000)
- Empower Illinois—to implement private school choice for low-income families interested in enrolling their children in Catholic schools in Illinois. ($650,000)
- First Place For Youth—to improve intensive case management around employment, education, and parenting outcomes for foster youth in Los Angeles, California. ($750,000)
- IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre—to strengthen governance systems of district-based programs and facilitate monitoring and learning efforts to achieve safe, affordable, and reliable water across six countries. ($7.63 million)
- Stanford University—to finalize and implement the monitoring, evaluation, and learning program for the Safe Water Strategic Initiative. ($1.93 million)
- Stellenbosch University—to implement the monitoring, evaluation, and learning program for the Young Children Affected by HIV and AIDS Strategic Initiative. ($2 million)
Find more detailed information on the foundation’s grantmaking.
Contact: Tenille Metti
Phone: 818.851.3733
Email: tenille@hiltonfoundation.org
The New York Community Trust (New York, NY)
The New York Community Trust recently approved $5.6 million in grants to 45 nonprofits in all five boroughs and beyond for programs ranging from expanding a business incubator for small food companies to improving the early education of foster children. A few highlights:
Children and Youth
- Charles B. Wang Community Health Center—to train Chinese-speaking parents of children with developmental disabilities. ($200,000)
Health
- Community Healthcare Network/Institute for Community Living—to hire nurse practitioners to provide coordinated health care in Brooklyn, New York. ($200,000)
- New York University School of Medicine—to evaluate The Trust’s investments in improving the health of South Bronx, New York residents. ($180,000)
- Primary Care Development Corporation—to boost small, primary care practices. ($115,000)
- Staten Island Partnership for Community Wellness—to fight childhood obesity on Staten Island, New York. ($100,000)
Elderly
- Center for an Urban Future—to evaluate and improve the city’s senior service system. ($50,000)
- Search and Care—to expand a money-management program for older adults. ($70,000)
LGBTQ
- New York Public Library—to highlight the nation’s largest LGBT archives and mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. ($240,000)
- Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders—to support tenants at two affordable housing residences for LGBT older adults. ($100,000)
- Stonewall 50 Consortium—to coordinate events for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. ($50,000)
Education and Youth Development
- Alliance for Quality Education—to push New York State to account for different students’ needs when analyzing the fairness of school funding. ($80,000)
- Brotherhood/Sister Sol—for youth leadership programs while its new building is under construction. ($200,000)
- Cardinal McCloskey Community Services—to meet the early education needs of foster children. ($200,000)
- Children’s Aid Society—to improve access to high-quality early education in the South Bronx, New York. ($100,000)
- Knowledge House—to expand a free coding program to four new high schools and place 90 students in paid internships at tech companies. ($125,000)
- New York City Coalition for Educational Justice—to advocate for policies and classes that take into account students’ diverse backgrounds. ($140,000)
- Read Alliance—to expand a program that builds vocabulary skills among at-risk students in elementary school. ($200,000)
Human Services
- Prevent Child Abuse New York—to advocate for expanded home visiting and child care programs. ($50,000)
- Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement—to update the self-sufficiency standard and raise awareness of the alternative poverty measure for New York City. ($50,000)
Contact: Amy Wolf
Phone: 646.214.1004
Email: aw@nyct-cfi.org
Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina (Columbia, SC)
The Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina, in partnership with The Duke Endowment, enters into its third year of funding for the Well-Being of Children in Kinship Care pilot project. Through intensive case management, tools, and resources, the project promotes permanency, safety and well-being of children in the Kinship Care program. HALOS serves families who are providing a home to child relatives so that foster care placement is not required. The overall goal of program is to support relatives or other adults by empowering and strengthening caregivers to be advocates for themselves in order to improve outcomes of the children in their care so that families can stay together.
Funds provided by the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina will support a HALOS Success Coach, Volunteer Coordinator, education/training, emergency funds for kinship families, and advocacy. This is the third disbursement of funds from the Sisters of Charity Foundation in partnership with The Duke Endowment totaling $1,017,014.
In addition to grantmaking, the foundation facilitates the convening of a Statewide Kinship Care Advisory Council to examine ways to better serve kinship families, within and outside the child welfare system, through improved practice and policy.
Contact: Langley Shealy
Phone: 803.254.0230
Email: lshealy@sistersofcharitysc.com
Healthcare Initiative Foundation (Germantown, MD)
The Healthcare Initiative Foundation (HIF) awarded $663,000 in FY18 Capacity Building Grants to support 15 organizations in Montgomery County, Maryland that are working to provide high-quality, comprehensive, and sustainable health care. HIF’s grants support three priorities: to improve the quality and availability of comprehensive health care, to build capacity of the health care network, and to grow a highly skilled and culturally competent health care workforce. These grants are projected to serve 12,026 unduplicated Montgomery County, Maryland residents, and build capacity of the health care network by generating a projected $563,000 in additional revenue.
HIF’s health-related grants include:
- Chinese Culture and Community Service Center—to build clinic capacity by hiring a part-time provider enabling the clinic to increase patient hours, increase the number of patients served to 1,200, and apply to become a Medicaid provider. ($50,000)
- Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind—to provide diabetic retinopathy services to an anticipated 720 low-income patients, expanding services to two additional safety-net clinics and enabling them to meet the standard for annual vision exams for patients with diabetes. ($50,000)
- Community Health through Education Enrichment and Research—to expand the Long Branch Healthy Food Access Program, which supplies healthy food and nutrition education to improve health outcomes for chronic disease management. ($50,000)
- Crossway Community—to provide education to 150 health care professionals on effective methods to engage aging individuals and individuals with dementia in meaningful Montessori activities. ($35,000)
- Institute for Public Health Innovation—to increase the number of MCPS schools with a Local School Wellness Council (LSWC) to 50 schools and to improve measures of success and productivity in existing LSWCs. ($25,000)
- Interfaith Works—to generate wealth and improve household income and health outcomes for 100 families enrolled in the Family Independence Initiative using household data to establish goals and direct change. ($25,000)
- Jewish Social Services Agency—to measure the impact and build the sustainability of Partners in Care, a collaborative model that enables 50 low-income seniors to age in place by addressing their health and ability to function independently. ($30,000)
- Mary’s Center—to purchase medical supplies for five rooms at their new medical center site in Silver Spring and to increase the number of patients served to 6,000. ($50,000)
- Mobile Medical Care and Aspire Counseling, Inc.—to enhance behavioral health integration for 1,275 patients, to improve the somatic and behavioral health of Mobile Med chronic disease patients through motivational interviewing, and to demonstrate improved somatic health of patients with comorbid depression or anxiety through behavioral health therapy. ($100,000)
- Montgomery Hospice—to increase the capacity to provide continuous home crisis care to 227 patients. ($20,000)
- Muslim Community Health Center—to expand dental clinic hours and provide dental services to 440 low-income patients. ($30,000)
- National Alliance on Mental Illness—to expand Sources of Strength, a suicide prevention program that fosters help seeking behavior and mental wellness, to John F. Kennedy High School serving 1,274 students. ($18,000)
- Thriving Germantown—to support EveryMind to provide quality, accessible behavioral health services to 50 vulnerable children and youth at Captain James E. Daly Elementary School (DES) and to an additional 25 to 50 family members ($80,000) and to support Identity, Inc. to improve social and emotional competencies and emotional well-being for 20 vulnerable youth at DES and to increase parent engagement in their children’s physical and emotional health. ($50,000)
- Tree House Children’s Advocacy Center—to ensure that high-quality, comprehensive, medical treatment is consistently available to 200 uninsured or underinsured victims of child maltreatment in Montgomery County, Maryland. ($50,000)
Contact: Catherine Oidtman
Phone: 301.525.9253
Email: catie.oidtman@hifmc.org
John A. Hartford Foundation (New York, NY)
The John A. Hartford Foundation approved three new grants totaling $1,388,378 to support family caregivers, advance age-friendly public health systems, and produce a documentary to help people plan for their needs as they age.
- Center for Health Care Strategies: Helping States Support Families Caring for an Aging America—to provide technical assistance to five states and disseminate resources nationally to build or enhance state-based plans to support family caregivers. ($279,000 for 21 months)
- Trust For America’s Health: Advancing an Age-Friendly Public Health System—to engage the public health system in Florida to develop an innovative, state-specific prototype that will define the role of public health in ensuring that older adults achieve and maintain their optimal health and well- being. ($409,378 for two years)
- Twin Cities Public Television, Inc.: Television Documentary Production and Distribution – Fast-Forward—to support the production and distribution of a documentary film, which aims to be a landmark production about how to prepare for later life and will include intergenerational discussions about the planning everyone should engage in, including talking about and documenting care preferences in the event of serious illness; preparing financially; and identifying caregivers. ($700,000 for 28 months)
Contact: Marcus Escobedo
Email: marcus.escobedo@johnahartford.org
The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation (Detroit, MI)
The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation recently awarded two research grants to Michigan researchers. The grantees are:
- University of Michigan, Michele Heisler, MD—to evaluate a demonstration project to assess whether a neighborhood-based community health worker program in a Medicaid health plan will improve participants’ health service utilization, impact key patient-centered outcomes, and determine the project costs, return on investment, and barriers and facilitators to adoption, implementation, maintenance, and potential replication. ($75,000)
- University of Michigan, David F. Keren, MD—to conduct a pilot study evaluating the impact InheRET, a decision support tool to identify patients at risk for hereditary cancers and alert providers for further genetic evaluation. ($74,954)
Contact: Nora Maloy
Phone: 313.225.8205
Email: nmaloy@bcbsm.com
California Wellness Foundation (Los Angeles, CA)
The California Wellness Foundation is investing $13 million over five years in two initiatives that address health issues that disproportionately impact women of color. Through its Reentry Women and the HIV/AIDS/STIs and Women of Color initiatives, Cal Wellness is countering threats to the wellness of women and girls of color.
Black and Latina women together represent less than 25 percent of all women in the United States, but make up the large majority of women currently living with HIV. HIV/AIDS-related illness is among the leading causes of death for Black women ages 25-34. In addition, women of color in the United States have high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). They face high risks of acquiring HIV and STIs due to social and economic conditions that make it difficult to protect their sexual health, such as high rates of poverty, ongoing trauma, income inequality, and unemployment.
A core part of the foundation’s Women of Color and HIV/AIDS/STIs initiative will be a public awareness campaign, “Upspoken,” coordinated by RALLY, a communications firm. The campaign will engage multigenerational black women and contribute to new ways of thinking about HIV, AIDS, and STIs among direct service providers, advocacy organizations, individual and institutional funders, and policymakers. It will also raise awareness about the disproportionate impact of HIV, AIDS, and STIs on women of color and encourage increased funding and improved public policies related to black women and HIV, AIDS, and STIs.
The initiative will also fund two projects to document and disseminate best practices to address prevention and early intervention for women of color at risk for HIV, AIDS, and STIs, and to develop innovations that result in integrated prevention and early intervention services for at-risk women of color.
Women of color are over represented among those incarcerated at the federal, state, and local levels, and California is home to the largest number of incarcerated adult women in the nation. Once released from jail and prison, formerly incarcerated women face significant barriers to building stable and healthy lives when they return to their communities.
Cal Wellness’ Re-entry and Employment Initiative aims to ensure that formerly incarcerated women of color, especially African American and Latina women, achieve health through financial well-being, including increased participation in the workforce and building financial assets. The foundation awarded grants to four organizations tackling criminal justice reform, A New Way of Life, Justice Now, Time for Change Foundation and The Praxis Project, to mobilize for local and statewide policy opportunities, such as effective implementation of Proposition 47 with a gender lens, that impact the specific challenges facing re-entry women. The grantees have established the Women Organizing Re-entry Communities of Color for Prop 47 (WORCC) Collaborative to target Prop 47 resources to benefit women of color as they seek employment and financial well-being upon reentry.
As part of the initiative, Cal Wellness also approved grants to support three demonstration projects to Root & Rebound, A New Way of Life, and Time for Change Foundation, as well as the Center for Employment Opportunities. The grantees will engage formerly incarcerated women of color, especially Black and Latina women, in comprehensive workforce development services including job training, career advancement, and asset-building. The Center for Employment Opportunities will provide technical assistance. The demonstration projects also will promote and advocate for systems and policy change that produces integrated services for formerly incarcerated women of color to gain financial well-being.
Contact: Sande Smith
Phone: 415.908.3009
Email: ssmith@calwellness.org
Connecticut Health Foundation (Hartford, CT)
The Connecticut Health Foundation has awarded Clifford Beers Clinic a grant to identify ways to sustain its innovative and successful program to better meet the needs of children and families with complex medical and mental health issues. The grant is one of seven awarded this quarter by the Connecticut Health Foundation, the state’s largest independent health philanthropy.
Clifford Beers Clinic developed WrapAround New Haven to focus on families who have complex needs and use significant amounts of health care services. The model provides care management, mental health treatment, and medical support, and addresses both health care needs and other factors that can interfere with families’ well-being. The pilot, which served 598 families covered by Medicaid, showed promising outcomes: decreased depression symptoms, reduced hospital stays and emergency department visits, and cost savings, particularly among patients with asthma, hypertension, heart disease, serious and persistent mental illness, or severe emotional disturbances. Health care costs dropped by an average of $600 per participant per month after enrollment in the program.
However, care management—the work that made WrapAround New Haven so successful—is not a billable service, meaning it is not paid for in the health care system’s current payment model. As a result, the expiration of the three-year, $9.7 million federal grant means the model won’t be available to children and families covered by Medicaid unless policy changes are made to make it financially sustainable.
The $55,000 grant from the Connecticut Health Foundation will support Clifford Beers’ work to identify ways to sustain the care management services, including developing a business plan and advocating for changes in how health care is financed. A separate $10,000 grant from the foundation will fund market research and financial modeling to support Clifford Beers’ efforts to launch a service line focused on care management for patients with complex needs that could be used by insurers and health systems.
Other grants awarded this quarter are:
- Connecticut Oral Health Initiative—to better meet the needs of children and families with complex medical and mental health issues, partnering with other organizations to ensure the sustainability of community health centers and school-based health centers, which are critical sources of oral health care, particularly for low-income Connecticut residents. ($85,000)
- Grantmakers In Health—to support the Terrance Keenan Institute for Emerging Leaders, which focuses on building leadership skills among individuals who could become the next generation of leaders in health philanthropy. ($10,000)
- New York University School of Medicine—for NYU to conduct additional research on the return on investment for patient navigation for colorectal cancer screening, home-based interventions to improve control of asthma in children, and smoking cessation interventions. This research, which targets diseases that disproportionately affect people of color, will help employers make decisions about including these benefit designs in their health insurance plans. ($50,000)
- Open Communities Alliance—to support planning for a pilot project to examine the health impact of moving to healthier neighborhoods for low-income families with children experiencing environmentally triggered health issues. ($25,000)
- Penn Center for Community Health Workers, University of Pennsylvania Health System—to allow the Penn Center for Community Health Workers to provide technical assistance to these efforts to ensure that each community health worker program is as effective as possible and can be evaluated to determine the return on investment to ensure financial sustainability. ($25,000)
Contact: Arielle Levin Becker
Phone: 860.724.1580
Email: arielle@cthealth.org