College Well-Being Funding Opportunity Grant

College Well-Being Funding Opportunity Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: American College Health Foundation
Amount: Up to US $3,500
Last Updated: September 19, 2025

Summary

The College Well-Being Funding Opportunity aims to enhance the health of college students through innovative programs and research. Offered by the American College Health Foundation, it provides up to two awards of $3,500 to eligible institutions for improving campus infrastructure that promotes student well-being. This initiative encourages creativity and collaboration among campus health professionals to develop effective, measurable outcomes in student wellness. By fostering a culture of well-being, the foundation seeks to address the evolving needs of contemporary students.

Overview

Our Mission To serve as the principal leadership organization for advancing the health of college students and campus communities through advocacy, education, and research. ACHA creates and supports an environment where students, faculty, and staff thrive by: Committing to diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and accessibility and an evolving approach for continued support of DEIJA in college health and well-being.Building greater acceptance and recognition of the critical role of college health and well-being in building healthy campuses.Sharing knowledge between multiple disciplines with a unified focus of advancing the health and well-being of college students and  their communities.Developing  multi-faceted, data-driven, whole-person approaches to holistic campus health and well-being in collaboration with their communities.Focusing on inclusive and evolving research, education, networking, and advocacy to achieve these outcomes. College Well-Being Award The purpose of the American College Health Foundation’s (ACHF) College Well-Being Award Funding Opportunity is to offer up to two $3,500 awards to one or more institutions of higher education to create or improve underlying campus infrastructure (e.g., networks, resources, tools, structures, coalition-building) in a manner that raises the well-being of students as evidenced through creative programming and outcomes research initiatives. The Foundation’s newest award embraces the focus on well-being, a more encompassing reference to the individuals, population, and environmental state of being. The Foundation believes it is time to apply fresh thinking on how we dedicate and apply our resources to positively impact the quality of our students lives. This new award in intended to stimulate creative, new approaches to well-being focused programming with evaluation driven measurable outcomes. Why Well-being? Merriam-Webster provides a definition: Well-being - the state of being happy, healthy, or successful Language tends to evolve to reflect our culture. The use of “well-being” can be found on college and university campuses as evidenced in professional titles and programs. This is a reflection of the changing nature of our students who seek something higher than good health. Furthermore, there appears to be momentum to increase measurement of happiness and flourishing more so than historical measures of health. Aspirations for success and happiness are individual priorities expressed by contemporary students. It suggests, therefore that the strategies we employ to promote student well-being extend beyond traditional interventions of education, diagnosis, treatment, and health care at the clinical level. Through the collaborative efforts of health, academics, student affairs, and administrative colleagues, institutions of higher education can foster healthy environments and behaviors in ways that yield demonstrable feedback from students who report improvement in their well-being. Evaluation Criteria This award expands the opportunity by expanding the frameworks that proposers may choose to use. Applicants are expected to provide a local, operational definition of well-being and a description of how the proposed activities to be funded by the award will contribute to student well-being. Further, applicants must describe how they measure well-being and will evaluate the proposed funded activities. Applications will be judged on the following criteria: Clear campus definition of well-beingActivities linked to improving campus well-beingImpact on fostering a collective vision and shared responsibility for achieving the proposed outcomesCollaboration in fostering a collective vision and shared responsibility for achieving the proposed outcomesThe level of innovation, creativity, and potential effectiveness of the proposed projectEvaluation planSustainability planCommitment of personnel and funding from the institutionReplicability and willingness to share outcomes with other institutions

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Only campus health professionals who are American College Health Association Individual Members or employed at an ACHA Member Institution are eligible to apply. If an applicant is not an Individual Member but is employed at a Member Institution, the institution’s representative individual member (RMI) must also sign the application. You must be a member of this organization to apply for this award - become a member. An ACHA Membership Number must be included on the application form. At least one person signing the application must be an ACHA member or RMI.

Ineligibility

This award will not fund requests to support existing operations, existing staffing, or the cost of attending conferences.Additionally, this funding opportunity does not support activities directly tied to fundraising events, advertising unrelated to the project, and purchase of routine supplies/equipment other than that needed to implement the project. It does not cover attendance at conferences or professional development activities. However, activities such as outside speakers used to train leaders for the project are acceptable. This funding opportunity is not a grant therefore indirect costs are not applicable.