Health Equity Capacity Building Grants Program

In this grant round, MeHAF will award seven new organizations an unrestricted operating support award of $30,000 per year for four years, along with a $5,000 annual budget for capacity-building activities.

MeHAF began the Health Equity Capacity-Building (HECB) grants program in the spring of 2018 and over seven years has funded fourteen Maine organizations.

The program goal statement, which grantees developed in the first years of the program is:

• The long-term goal of the HECB program is to provide a foundation for MeHAF and grantees to collectively work toward building a movement for health equity in Maine.
• Through the program, grantees and MeHAF will forge new transformative, healing relationships, both between funder and grantee and across communities.
• Working together, grantees and MeHAF will craft a system and structure that enables grantees to examine and strengthen their internal systems, skills, resources, networks, and audience so that they each have what they need to pursue their missions and build long-term, sustainable power.
• MeHAF will use its voice and influence to spread equitable practices to other funders, the state, and mainstream organizations.  By learning alongside grantees, MeHAF will build and sustain grant programs that advance justice and equity, and apply that learning across its other programs.

The grantee cohort is made up of organizations that work with communities facing health disparities based on factors including race, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, and experience with criminal justice, sexual violence, and homelessness.  In its first two rounds, the program paired unrestricted $25,000 operating support grants with a cohort learning community and self-selected technical assistance supports, both in group and individualized settings, to enhance the stability, effectiveness and overall capacity of these systematically under-resourced organizations and communities. Each grantee identifies their priority needs for capacity-building and selects the best method to address that need, which MeHAF pays for up to $10,000 annually for each grantee.

The grantees design their convenings, focused on building connections and fostering collaboration and shared understanding across the different organizations and communities represented in the cohort.

Organizations that will be considered for funding must be: (1) led by and serving communities that are systematically excluded from resources, including BIPOC, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, and people experiencing homelessness, and (2) working to advance health equity for their communities. Applicants selected for funding will be paired with an organization from the current grantee cohort that will help with orientation to the program and serve as a connection point with the other grantees.