Our Priorities

The HealthComp Foundation’s grantmaking strategy includes both proactive and responsive funding priorities to align with our mission of accelerating a healthy community and advancing equity in Northeast Ohio.

PROACTIVE

Our proactive grantmaking focuses on supporting efforts to promote the community’s ability to understand and assess priority health needs and to convene resources to address them. Grant applications aligned with this strategy are by invitation only.

RESPONSIVE

Through our responsive grantmaking, the HealthComp Foundation will support (1) efforts and initiatives that increase social and community support as well as (2) programs anchored in equity that utilize community health workers and other peer connectors:

Programs that increase social and community support

Social and community context is an important social determinant of health. Interventions to help people access social and community support are critical for improving health and well-being and advancing health equity and social inclusion. Our interests are in work that addresses the following:

    1. Discrimination: We fund programs and initiatives that provide support to communities facing discrimination and heal from harms that they did not choose and cannot control.
    2. Civic Participation: We support the elevation of community voice in the development of policies and solutions that promote health and healing. We value initiatives that promote increased capacity for self-efficacy and self-determination and engagement in the democratic process.
    3. Social Support and Cohesion: We are specifically interested in programs that provide social support to youth and families experiencing trauma. We will consider requests for:
      • mentoring programs aimed at helping young people overcome adversity and develop resilience (more detail provided below);
      • programs and initiatives that help parents, especially single parents, with building supportive networks, developing self-advocacy skills, or developing and maintaining healthy and supportive relationships with their children;
      • programs that provide social supports for children experiencing the trauma of parental incarceration; and
      • supports to family caregivers of people with disabilities to reduce anxiety and depression.
    4.  Incarceration: We support advocacy for reforms in the criminal justice system that address the disproportionate incarceration of people of color.
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Requests for support of youth mentoring programs will be evaluated according to the degree in which they incorporate best practices identified by MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership. We are interested in programs that:
• target youth that will benefit most from mentoring, namely those most at risk;
• have clearly defined and articulated goals and expectations;
• include a level of flexibility that accommodates the diverse personalities and needs of mentors and mentees;
• incorporate activities that facilitate relationship building;
• support and involve parents and families to the degree possible;
• coordinate with other services and supports as needed;
• provide some structure to allow for careful matching between mentors with mentees;
• provide training for mentors both before and after they are matched with youth;
• have reliable screening practices for mentors; and
• provide consistent oversight, training, and support for mentors to ensure that needs of mentees are being met and concerns are being addressed effectively.

Learn more about social and community context as a social determinant of health:

Programs that utilize community health workers and other peer connectors (e.g., peer recovery coaches, navigators, doulas, etc.)

Community health workers (CHWs) and other peer connectors provide social supports and connect people to resources needed for their optimal health. These resources may include, but are not limited to, housing, employment, training and education, health care services, family planning, etc. The intentionality behind the CHW model includes hiring, training and deploying persons residing in the communities they serve; who possess personal knowledge and insight of neighborhood dynamics; and who will provide trustworthy, culturally appropriate support consistent with their clients’ values and needs. This priority is not intended to support traditional case management conducted by a social service agency but instead peer-delivered services.

Examples of programs that would fit with this focus area include, but are not limited to, those that:

      • Connect pregnant women and new mothers to resources needed for both mom’s and baby’s best health
      • Provide peer support to individuals seeking recovery from substance use disorders
      • Connect individuals with disabilities to needed supports
      • Help individuals find appropriate health insurance and understand their benefits
      • Assist individuals with securing resources for basic needs

Learn more about community health workers and other programs that connect people to needed resources that improve their health: