CHCF Grants

CHCF Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: California Health Care Foundation
Last Updated: August 24, 2025

Summary

The California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) is committed to enhancing California's health care system, particularly for low-income individuals. CHCF focuses on improving access to coverage and care, advancing people-centered approaches, and laying the foundation for meaningful change. Grants are awarded for projects that align with these goals, emphasizing relevance to California's health care challenges. While unsolicited proposals are welcomed, most grants result from competitive requests, supporting innovative solutions to enhance health care delivery.

Overview

How We Do Our Work The California Health Care Foundation is dedicated to advancing meaningful, measurable improvements in the way the health care delivery system provides care to the people of California, particularly those with low incomes and those whose needs are not well served by the status quo. We work to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. At the California Health Care Foundation, we know that health care is a basic necessity. We work hard to improve California’s health care system, so it works for all Californians. Because low-income Californians experience the biggest health burden and face the greatest barriers to care, our priority is to make sure they can get the care they need. We are especially focused on strengthening Medi-Cal — the cornerstone of California’s safety net. We are also committed to finding better ways to meet the health care needs of the millions of people who remain uninsured in our state. We organize our work around three main goals: Improving Access to Coverage and Care We work to broadly strengthen California’s health care safety net so all Californians with low incomes have access to the care they need when they need it. As part of that, we help stakeholders understand the performance of Medi-Cal to support improvement across the system. Key Focus Areas: Access to Affordable Coverage: Ensuring that all with low incomes have affordable health coverage and that all who are eligible for Medi-Cal are enrolled.Access to Primary Care: Ensuring that all Medi-Cal members have access to high-quality, linguistically and culturally responsive primary care, inclusive of behavioral health care. Strengthening and diversifying the health workforce, including community health workers and promotores, so the safety net has the people it needs to deliver primary care effectively.Access to Specialty Care: Spreading the use of telehealth in California’s safety net and improving access to specialty care for Californians with low incomes. Advancing People-Centered Care We work to ensure that Californians — particularly those enrolled in Medi-Cal — receive responsive, comprehensive, and coordinated care that supports their health and well-being, and reduces inequities. Key focus areas: Behavioral Health Transformation: Transforming mental health and substance use treatment so wherever and however care is delivered, it is effective, appropriate, and accessible, thereby improving outcomes and reducing inequities. Includes work to improve detection and treatment of maternal mental health conditions.Care for People with Complex Needs: Helping Medi-Cal enrollees with challenging health or social circumstances get high-quality medical care and supportive services that improve their lives. Particular focus on people experiencing homelessness and older adults with low incomes, and supporting implementation of CalAIM.Advancing Black Health Equity: Improving care and outcomes for Black Californians by working with health care partners to interrupt racism, build transparency and accountability around equitable care, and diversify the health care workforce. Includes work to advance Black birth equity in California. Laying the Foundation We invest in people, knowledge, and networks that help to make meaningful change possible in California’s health care system. Market Analysis and Insight: We provide research and analysis so decisionmakers have a market-wide view of California’s complex health care ecosystem.High-Quality Health Journalism: We support health journalism so that Californians have access to timely, relevant information about the most pressing health care issues.Building Leadership: We help to develop the leadership and skills of California’s health care professionals, state policy partners, and safety-net organizations to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.Bridging the Innovation Gap: We support information, networks, and communications platforms that enable safety-net organizations and entrepreneurs to work together to improve the delivery system. CHCF Grants CHCF funds projects that are aligned with its strategic goals, have relevance to California health care as outlined in these goals, and generally have implications beyond a single institution. While unsolicited requests are accepted by the foundation, most of our grants are solicited or awarded through a competitive request for proposals.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. CHCF supports projects that are aligned with its priorities.Grants awarded by CHCF are not limited to California entities or to individuals residing in California.However, projects must have relevance to California health care delivery issues. Examples include national projects that have California-specific components or projects that might result in lessons learned that would inform California initiatives.CHCF allows up to 15% of direct costs (excluding subcontracts) to be charged to a project as an indirect cost.

Ineligibility

CHCF generally does not fund:Direct clinical careGeneral operationsPurchases of equipmentCapital or endowment campaignsConstruction, purchase, or renovation of facilitiesAnnual appeals or fundraising eventsBasic biomedical researchInsurance subsidiesRequests that benefit an individualOrganizations outside of the US