HCF: Responsive Funding - Urgent Response Grants

Overview

_NOTE: The Healthy Communities Foundation’s Responsive Grants Portal will_ _reopen in Fall 2025._  _We will not review sponsorship requests during the closure. If you have an urgent response or emergency request, please contact our program associate._

Who We Are

Access to quality, affordable healthcare is an important factor in leading a full, healthy, and resilient life. However, there are social and systemic factors –the conditions in which we are born, live, and work–that play a crucial, if not, more influential role in our overall health.

As a community-led and engaged foundation that serves a 27 zip-code region in Chicago and the western Cook County suburbs, we seek to:

* Center community context in our grantmaking and strengthen our local health ecosystem by working with and learning from health equity leaders and their organizations
* Meet immediate and emergent community health and wellness needs for residents, especially those underserved and underinsured
* Catalyze long-term systems change to address root causes of health inequities and health barriers

Communities hold the solutions to the issues they face. Therefore, we practice trust-based philanthropy, which centers transformative grantmaking and how we engage, learn from, and collaborate with community. This approach influences how we steward our Foundation’s resources and continuously evolve our strategies to achieve our mission and vision.

Responsive Funding Grants

As a community-informed and engaged foundation, we recognize that our grantmaking must be agile and responsive to our region’s immediate and evolving community health and wellness needs. Outside of our general operating support grantmaking, we make Responsive grants to community partners for time-sensitive crises, special activities promoting health and wellness, and sponsorship for community events that celebrate and/or encourage new ideas and innovation in our region. Additionally, our Responsive grants are opportunities to learn about organizations we may not already have a relationship with, which can create gateways for future partnerships with those organizations.

Led by our mission, vision, and core values, we accept requests on a rolling basis that align with one of five pathways, also known as the “5 Cs”, of our responsive funding:

Celebrate

Through the “Celebrate” pathway, we sponsor social events, such as galas, anniversary celebrations and fundraisers. We prioritize event sponsorship requests from current HCF grantee partners and events located in and accessible to community residents.

Collaborate

Through the “Collaborate” pathway, we provide funding/sponsorship for events or initiatives that allow community-based organizations, local leaders, and/or community members in our service region to collaborate across issues that create a more connected ecosystem of care, health and wellness. Examples include health summits, health fairs, and in-community meetings or forums.

Community

Through the “Community” pathway, we provide funding to organizations for special projects and activities that support on-the-ground community work to advance health equity in our region. We understand that efforts are constantly evolving, and the goal of this pathway is to maintain an open door to new and emerging organizations and initiatives. Partners funded in this pathway must focus on and work within the Healthy Communities Foundation’s service region.

Connect

Through the “Connect” pathway, we provide funding for events or initiatives, such as those from philanthropy–serving organizations or relevant professional groups, that allow people to connect around an issue aligned with the Healthy Communities Foundation’s peer learning or field learning goals.

Create

Through the “Create” pathway, we provide funding for 1) projects that aim to create a new tool, resource, collaboration, or initiative that advances the Foundation’s mission, vision, and values, or 2) organizations responding to emergency community health needs during a crisis.

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

* Who We Fund
* Must be a 501c3 organization (or have a signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a Fiscal Sponsor) 
* Responsive funding requests must benefit residents or staff that reside and/or are based in the Healthy Communities Foundation service region. 
* Responsive funding requests must align with at least one of the Healthy Communities Foundation’s funding priorities, which include:
* Access to quality health services;
* Address social determinants of health;
* Advocate for health-related policies and systems change; and
* Augment health knowledge. 
* Philanthropy-Serving Organizations (PSOs) are eligible for Responsive funding if the request aligns with or supports HCF’s learning goals. 
* Your organization must not discriminate by race, ethnicity, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, religion or national origin.  
* Your organization does not have to be a current grantee partner of Healthy Communities Foundation.  
* Important considerations
* To ensure an equitable response to Responsive funding requests we receive: 
*  Organizations can only receive one sponsorship through the “Celebrate”, “Collaborate”, or “Connect” pathways per 12-month period. 
* After five years of receiving sponsorship support through the “Celebrate”, “Collaborate”, and/or “Connect” pathways, an organization must take a two-year hiatus from requesting sponsorship support.

Ineligibility

* What We Do Not Fund
* Requests submitted less than 6 weeks before the start date of the proposed event, project, or initiative.  
* Initiatives already receiving general operating support from Healthy Communities Foundation  
* Businesses 
Capital campaigns\ 
* Government entities  
* Individuals 
* Operating foundations not directly connected to community-based efforts in our service region 
* Partisan political events or individuals 
* Religious activities (i.e., worship services) and/or programs of religious teachings or training (i.e., bible study) 
* Scholarships 
* School districts & individual schools (including parent/teacher associations, charter schools and nonprofits with more than 80% of expenses for school-based operations.)

\*Only capital expenses for materials will be considered for funding (i.e. medical equipment, dental chairs).