Grantmaking Philosophy

The Endowment for Health works collaboratively with community partners to identify solutions to pressing issues and develop high-impact strategies to make change. Sometimes strategies are identified by a coalition or working group focused on a priority area. Sometimes the good ideas come from grant seekers. And sometimes the Endowment identifies opportunities based on research, emerging practices or the good work of other funders.

The foundation employs two grantmaking models, Strategic Grantmaking and Responsive Grantmaking. Grant seekers are encouraged to speak with an Endowment staff member to discuss potential projects and ideas prior to submitting a grant proposal.

Strategic Grantmaking

Most Endowment for Health grants are strategic (invitation only). The Endowment is committed to working with community partners to solve complex social problems. It is this complexity that makes collaboration so essential. Our approach, like that of many foundations, is to help set the pre-conditions for collaboration among stakeholders in a way that creates large-scale impact.

To tackle these problems, we work in partnership with community members, civic leaders, organizations, advocates, and experts from many sectors to jointly reach common goals. Specifically, we are dedicated to developing strong fields in five selected priority areas with the aim of ensuring the overall wellbeing for all New Hampshire people.

• Children's Behavioral Health
• Early Childhood
• Health Equity
• Health Policy
• Healthy Aging

Additionally, the Forward Fund, provides grants to address workforce shortage issues related to policy and practice barriers to licensure for health care workers, as well as assessing best practices for increasing placements.

Each priority area has a dedicated allocation of funding to support the work which includes stakeholder engagement, leadership development, knowledge building, program standards and quality transformation, and policy alignment. Our Strategic Grants are made in partnership with our community partners and the strategies and outcomes identified by the fields in which we work.

Large scale change cannot be achieved in the short term, nor can it be realized by one organization acting alone. Contact the staff person assigned to each of these priority areas to learn more about our work.

Responsive Grantmaking

The Endowment has a pool of funds set aside for the Opportunity Grant Program. The Opportunity Grant Program was established to meet community needs and opportunities outside the scope of the Endowment’s priority areas. Opportunity Grants provide a responsive pool of funding for projects (including technical assistance) that address urgent needs and emerging opportunities, and/ or projects that build and disseminate knowledge to improve the health of New Hampshire’s people.

Projects funded from the Opportunity Grant Program are usually for technical assistance for a one-time project that is $20,000 or less. These funds often fill a gap that small nonprofit organizations might not have the funding for and historically had significant impact for relatively small dollars. See Opportunity Grant Program guidelines for a full list of the types of projects funded.