CSHF Grants - Capacity-Building Opportunity

CSHF Grants - Capacity-Building Opportunity

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Colorado Springs Health Foundation
Last Updated: October 27, 2025

Summary

The Colorado Springs Health Foundation offers a capacity-building grant aimed at enhancing organizational effectiveness in addressing community health needs. Focus areas include expanding healthcare access, addressing workforce shortages, preventing suicide, and fostering healthy environments. Eligible organizations must be tax-exempt and serve El Paso or Teller Counties. Grants support projects that build skills and systems, with a preference for proposals that demonstrate a strong alignment with the foundation's mission and potential for significant community impact.

Overview

Colorado Springs Health Foundation understands that health outcomes (length of life and quality of life) are influenced by multiple factors. These factors include clinical care, health behaviors, social and economic determinants and the physical environment. This is termed a “population health framework” or “population health model.” To learn more about it and how our community stacks up against other Colorado counties, check out the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. Funding Focus Areas Colorado Springs Health Foundation has identified five funding focus areas. These areas align with the Foundation’s mission, community need, community and stakeholder input, and the population health framework described above. Expand access to healthcare for those in greatest need. This includes care for physical, mental, oral and/or substance use disorder-related concerns.Address the healthcare workforce shortagePrevent suicideCultivate healthy environments in high-need or underserved communities. Healthy environments are those that encourage greater physical activity or those that increase access to healthy, affordable food.Prevent or heal trauma; Strengthen resilience Grant Length Multiyear grant requests are considered when an organization or collaboration needs support to initiate a new approach to addressing a community need or concern. CSHF will not entertain multiyear requests for general operating support or ongoing program operations. Starting Jan. 1, 2022, a current funded partner may not request additional funding from CSHF until/unless it has spent down its current grant funds and submitted its final grant report. After these steps are completed, the organization is welcome to pursue funding again. As has been CSHF’s ongoing practice, this time-out guideline does not apply to capacity-building/technical assistance requests. An organization may apply for and/or receive capacity-building/TA funding even if it is a current funded partner. Other The Colorado Springs Health Foundation will consider emergency funding requests in exceptional and uncommon circumstances. Please contact CSHF staff for additional information. In rare occasions, the Colorado Springs Health Foundation may choose to consider requests that are within its mission yet outside the funding focus areas and offer both high potential for impact and strong alignment with CSHF values. Building Organizational Capacity CSHF defines capacity-building work as discreet projects that help an organization acquire or strengthen organizational skills, strategies, systems and/or structures. They often involve the use of an outside expert consultant. For CSHF, capacity-building funding may not be used for ongoing operating expenses or capital projects. CSHF offers other grant opportunities designed for general operating, program or capital needs and you can learn more about them here. The purpose is to help organizations function more effectively. Examples of capacity-building or technical assistance projects include but are not limited to: Planning (strategic, operational, succession, funds development, communications etc.)Impact Assessment (e.g. program evaluation)One-time or infrequent volunteer or staff training, e.g. board governance training, leadership coaching, etc.)Merger, dissolution or other restructuring effortsProcess improvement work (e.g. LEAN)One-time technology needs (e.g. computer hardware)

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Applicant organizations must be one of the following:Tax-exempt (501(c)3)Operating under the fiscal agency of a tax-exempt organizationTax-supported like a school or local/state governmentApplicant organizations must serve either El Paso and/or Teller Counties, Colorado.Grant requests must align with Colorado Springs Health Foundation’s mission and its funding focus areas.Grant size (amount approved) varies significantly.Colorado Springs Health Foundation prefers not to provide sole, majority and/or continuous funding for a request.The request must align with at least one of the Foundation’s funding focus areas and benefit the El Paso or Teller County Region. Please see information on CSHF’s funding focus areas here.Organizations that have a current, open general operating, program or capital grant are eligible to apply for capacity-building funding.An organization may be awarded no more than two capacity-building grant awards in a given calendar year.

Ineligibility

Colorado Springs Health Foundation does not support:For-profit organizationsIndividualsRequests for annual appeals, membership drives, fundraising events, political candidates or lobbying effortsRequests from re-granting organizations for their own grantmaking activitiesWhat it is notFunding for ongoing operating expenses (e.g. salaries, benefits, supplies, lease, software subscriptions, ongoing training)Funding for capital projects