HIF Awards $1.116M to Grant Partners

by hifmc | Apr 29, 2024 | HIF Grantmaking

On February 28, the HIF Board of Trustees awarded $1.116M to 29 nonprofit partners serving Montgomery County with the potential to impact more than 130,000 residents. The grant investments continue the Healthcare Initiative Foundation’s (HIF) longstanding commitment to advance the health and wellness in our community by increasing access to quality and comprehensive healthcare and health programming.

FY24 Capacity Building Scope

The FY24 Capacity Building portfolio marks the first capacity building cycle awarded through the lens of the Foundation’s 2023 Strategic Plan that was launched in July 2023. While maintaining the integrity of the work of the last fifty years of Healthcare Initiative Foundation, the 2023 Strategic Plan focused the vision and mission into three robust strategic goals: To support affordable, integrated, culturally responsive health and wellness systems across the lifespan; To support Comprehensive behavioral health services across the lifespan; and To increase effectiveness of and improve accessibility to health, wellness, and social services, the Foundation supports convenings and collaborations amongst stakeholders that improve and integrate services.

Strategic Priority 1: Health and Wellness

The Board of Trustees awarded $829K to twenty nonprofits. These nonprofits will address food insecurity, placed-based dental and vision care, culturally-appropriate physical healthcare, health service navigation, and healthcare workforce programming. Key to the impact of these investments is ensuring the connectedness and integration of the programs across partners. A wonderful example of addressing the cross-sectoral approach to systemic solutions is the investment of $142K to address food insecurity. HIF awarded Community FarmShare, AfriThrive, and Mid-County United Ministries to increase access to healthy, locally-grown produce as a means of using ‘food as medicine.’

Strategic Priority 2: Behavioral Health

Knowing the critical situation facing the mental wellness of our community, nine nonprofits were awarded $262K to provide services to more than 2,100 residents. Six of the nine programs will lean in to provide essential resources and programs to the youth and adolescents in the County through existing and new partnerships. In addition to the direct program support investments, the Foundation awarded EveryMind a grant to address the troubling issue of the lack of mental health professionals trained to provide on-the-ground support. This forward-thinking program will provide paid internships to three social service students who will be placed within MCPS schools and at the Sheppard Pratt Community Wellness Hub in Germantown. Offering paid internships works to address the hurdle of professionals coming into this field requiring a livable income while simultaneously completing arduous practicums.

Strategic Priority 3: Convenings and Collaboration

New to this year’s Strategic Goal Priorities is the intentional investment in convenings and collaborations that increase the effectiveness and accessibility to health and wellness programs throughout the county. HIF fully recognizes that substantial and valuable programs require connectivity and coalition-building for innovation to bloom. Through this goal, HIF awarded Meals on Wheels of Takoma Park/Silver Spring with grant dollars to allow for the development of a community meeting place for nonprofits to come together in the down county region.

HIF’s Commitment to Priority Zip Codes

Healthcare Initiative Foundation is immensely proud of the commitment of the Board of Trustees and staff to ensure that historically-underinvested communities throughout Montgomery County are receiving placed-based, culturally-competent programming. In the Foundation’s FY21 Capacity cycle, applicants were asked to identify, as best they could, how their HIF-requested dollars would be distributed throughout the county’s zip codes, with priority towards those zip codes with the lowest life expectancy.

This commitment enlightened HIF’s grantmaking and provided insight into the communities impacted the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. This grant cycle, 85% of grant requested dollars were going to support high-impact zip codes.

To learn more about HIF’s grantmaking guidelines or grant calendars, visit www.hifmc.org.

Advanced Purchasing Pilot Continues

by hifmc | Apr 23, 2024 | HIF Grantmaking

Healthcare Initiative Foundation (HIF) is pleased to announce its second-year investment in Manna Food Center’s (Manna) Advanced Purchasing Pilot. Through the Foundation’s FY24 Emerging Needs portfolio, Manna will receive $47,500 to continue this innovative project. In FY23, $50,000 was invested to bring culturally-important fresh produce to historically under-invested communities which were in dire need of fresh, healthy produce. This proof-of-concept investment was a response to the Foundation engaging with community partners throughout 2022 about food insecurity issues related to the lack of fresh produce coming into Montgomery County after COVID emergency funds expired.

The Advanced Purchasing Pilot is molded by the highly successful Farm to Food Bank model. This pilot is designed to be mutually beneficial and sustainable for both the community and local farmers: food providers get culturally-important produce for their residents, farmers get paid a fair rate in advance for their goods and services, and community members receive healthy, farm-to-table produce!

The Gaithersburg C.A.R.E Hub receives produce made available through the FY23 Emerging Needs Advanced Pilot Purchasing grant from HIF.

Manna’s initial 16-week pilot project in the spring and summer of 2023 was a remarkable success. 1,100 residents received more than 18,000 pounds of fresh produce from two local farms! The Gaithersburg C.A.R.E Hub partnered with Farm at Our House (Brookville) to receive more than 8,000 pounds of produce, a 3,924% increase from the previous year. Lewis Orchards (Germantown) provided 10,650 pounds of produce to Kingdom Fellowship AME Church, more than exceeding the Farm to Food Bank goal for this partnership.

The FY24 funding will connect three Montgomery County-based farms (Dodo Farms, Sandy Spring Gardens, and One Acre Farm) with three food provider partners (Clifton Park Hub, AfriThrive, and The Upcounty Hub). Over the course of 4 to 6 months, more than 20,000 pounds of fresh produce will be delivered.

According to Manna, “The success of this pilot [in 2023] created a blueprint for replication in year two [2024]. Our intent is to conduct a contract growing project with farms that have different characteristics, such as smaller acreage and disparate labor force in order to see how well the model adapts to farms of differing capacities.”

This project falls under the Foundation’s Food Security Initiatives.

2023 Strategic Plan Launch

by hifmc | Jul 5, 2023 | HIF Grantmaking

HIF Launching 2023 Strategic Plan

Come talk with the Healthcare Initiative Foundation team about our newly developed 2023 Strategic Plan. We will share our refreshed Vision, Mission, and Goals and answer any questions you might have. Click image above for registration link or click here.

The session will be recorded for those unable to attend.

Capacity Award Recipients for 2023

by hifmc | Feb 28, 2023 | HIF Grantmaking

On February 21^st, the HIF Board of Directors awarded more than $500k in grant dollars to #22 Montgomery County-serving nonprofits. These grant dollars are focused on ensuring that all members of Montgomery County receive high-quality, comprehensive, and equitable health and wellness services in the communities where they live.

Due to the vast need in our community, the Board of Trustees was committed now so more than ever to investments that built collaboration and cross-sectoral coordination within the Foundation’s strategic priority areas to have the greatest community impact. This year, more than 80% of the awarded grant dollars will be supporting the historically under-served zip codes in the county.

More than $176K is being invested in healthcare access and navigation services to mitigate the health disparities in our community. WUMCO Help and American Red Cross are expanding services and care to historically underserved communities. JSSA, CaringMatters, Family Services’ Thriving Germantown program, and CCACC are providing care navigation resources for seniors, families, and patients managing cancer treatments and chronic diseases. Jewish Council for the Aging is bringing their Kensington Club model to Germantown for the first time ever, expanding vital services for our aging population.

$98K will support specialty care services in Montgomery County. Both American Diversity Group and the Maryland Foundation of Dentistry will be providing free dental services to those who would otherwise not be able to access or afford this specialty care service. Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind and Prevention of Blindness Society will continue their efforts to ensure that students within the 27 Community Schools in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) are provided eye exams following their Department of Health and Human Services screenings. Students who require them receive two free prescription eyeglasses. We know from longitudinal research that this successful health intervention has a tremendous impact on a child’s confidence and academic success and the Foundation is excited to move this project to scale.

Knowing the critical demand for behavioral and mental health services in our community, particularly for our youth, HIF is dedicating $85K to #4 nonprofit partners focusing on mental health and wellness. Community Bridges, Crittenton Services, and Our Minds Matter will continue their work engaging MCPS youth to build their wellness and resiliency. Warrior Canine Connection, and their partnership with The Cohen Veterans Clinic at Easter Seals, will impact the military and veteran community using their Mission Based Trauma Recovery model and service dogs. In conjunction with the $85K in this cycle, in July 2022, HIF awarded $75k to Identity, Inc. to develop a proof-of-concept pilot—Trauma-Informed Eco-System—at Magruder and Seneca Valley High Schools.

$70K will be supporting #4 nonprofits to address food insecurity in the County – AfriThrive, American Muslim Senior Society, Yad Yehuda of Greater Washington, and Community FarmShare. These investments will increase access to culturally important healthy, affordable, and nutritious meals. HIF recognizes food insecurity as a social determinant of health that impacts our community’s health outcomes. It is critical that these awards closely align with existing systems in the County, centered around meeting the needs of our diverse community, and scaled the work of the Foundation’s existing food partners. In the last 5 months, HIF has also awarded a combined $85k to Nourish Now and Manna Food Center to address access to food items post-federal COVID recovery aid and to scale access to fresh and local produce to community-based organizations and the food distribution hubs.

Lastly, to address the need for a qualified healthcare workforce, HIF will award $75K to AsylumWorks, Meals on Wheels of Takoma Park, and EveryMind to provide paid internships and fellowship opportunities to HIF social work student scholars. These partnerships will concurrently support the social work workforce pipeline, connect scholars to nonprofits and potential employers, and scale the availability of behavioral health services to our community members. When you include the $1M 5-year installment to The Universities at Shady Grove and Montgomery College, the FY23 total Healthcare Workforce investment is $275K.

The HIF Board of Trustees and staff are immensely proud of the work being done each day by our partners. We know we cannot fund every application that comes to us, but we appreciate all the time and energy that went into each thoughtful project. The HIF team welcomes conversations throughout the year to talk about the Foundation’s strategic priorities and grant award guidelines. Parties can reach out to Jess Fuchs, Director of Grants and Community Impact, to learn more.

Saltsman Award Recipients Announced

by hifmc | Jul 29, 2022 | HIF Grantmaking

Each spring, Healthcare Initiative Foundation (HIF) identifies one to two nonprofits who exemplify volunteer service in the health and wellness space in Montgomery County. In the last two and a half years, our community has seen the tremendous impact of volunteers through vaccination clinics, food distributions, health clinics, and more.

In June 2022, HIF had the privilege of bestowing the Brooks Saltsman Award to Guru Gobind Singh Foundation and A Place of Hope. Both organizations received an investment of $2,500 to support their health and wellness programming. Brooks Johnstone Saltsman was a former HIF Trustee who dedicated her life to volunteerism. This award recognizing an outstanding nonprofit was created to honor her legacy.

Guru Gobind Singh Foundation launched into the nonprofit service space in March 2020, putting their Sikh principles into practice to help their community as the pandemic surged. Since this time, using more than #100,000 volunteer hours with #400 volunteers, Guru Gobind Singh Foundation has provided hundreds of bags of produce and non-perishable goods, and more than #345,000 vegetarian prepared meals. The Foundation continues to serve knowing that their community has ongoing food insecurity challenges. With this award and its investment, the Foundation intends to provide healthy meals and food to #500 community members while also helping to ensure their access to local medical providers for ongoing health services. To learn more, visit their website.

A Place of Hope is a new and mighty community service provider. A Place of Hope is also dedicated to addressing food insecurity issues in Montgomery County and committed to building a culturally competent healthcare workforce. Since their inception, they have provided meals to #2,000 members of our community while also offering care coordination of resources, training and employment supports, and vaccine administration. With this award and investment, , A Place of Hope will be able to offer Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) or Geriatric Nursing Assistant (GNA) training to #2 individuals from the black and brown communities in Montgomery County effort to address the growing demand for culturally competent healthcare workers! Follow their work on their Facebook page.

If you are interested in volunteering in our community, make sure to check out Montgomery County Volunteer Center’s page.

My MCM Launches Health Connect