TEAM REFLECTIONS
Centering Community Through Flexible, Multi-Year Funding
In 2018, the Healthy Communities Foundation began aligning its grantmaking with strategies, principles, and values focused on upstream health equity. In 2021, in response to the COVID pandemic, HCF launched a bold three-year plan that significantly increased funding.
Since then, the Foundation has distributed nearly $60M (nearly 50% of its current endowment) in grants to nimble community-based and advocacy organizations that anchor the local health equity ecosystem and public safety net.
A Deeper Commitment in 2024
In 2024, HCF deepened its community-centered, trust-based approach by expanding unrestricted multi-year grants from 20 to 32 organizations and extending support from three to five years. This shift builds on three core goals:
1.Build deep partnerships with communities, leaders, and organizations
2. Invest in community-defined solutions
3. Strengthen intersectional strategies toward health equity.
What We Learned
- Stronger Organizations: 70% of multi-year partners retained or added staff, while one-year partners focused more on launching new programs or services.
- Increased Resources to the HCF Region: 89% leveraged HCF’s unrestricted support to attract new and increased funding.
- Greater Responsiveness: Nearly two-thirds of partners said they adapted quickly to the pandemic in 2021 and the local asylum seeker crisis in 2023 by adjusting programming, resources, and staff. Partners consistently cited unrestricted support as critical to their response strategies.
What's Ahead
Today, 65% of HCF’s total grantmaking is multi-year and nearly 90% is unrestricted. Over the next five years, HCF will refine its grantmaking strategy to balance responsiveness with grantmaking that cultivates power and health equity systems change. Our multi-year partners have shared what matters most to them, and their input (listed below) will continue to shape HCF’s grantmaking through 2030 by centering:
- Flexible Funding – allowing partners to shift and respond as needed.
- Consistency– predictable grants that offer greater stability than crisis-focused cash infusions.
- Context First – strategy and action informed by community leaders at the hyper-local level.