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The Nova Fund at MeHAF

Background

At the end of 2022, the Maine Health Access Foundation received a $9 million unrestricted gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Our Board committed to expend the donated funds on activities consistent with MeHAF’s mission, and, in keeping with the extraordinary opportunity of this gift, to make every effort to expend the $9 million over the course of three to five years (2023 - 2028), while maintaining activities to implement our Strategic Framework at a level of financial commitment that would have existed absent the gift.

Early in 2023 we began engaging key stakeholders to identify focus areas for using these resources. A group of our Board and Community Advisory Committee (CAC) members and staff participated in a multi-day, intensive “design sprint” process to develop a plan.  This resulted in guidance, subsequently approved by the full Board and CAC, highlighting three big categories of work to fund: Increasing Funding to Current/Recent Priorities; Collaborative Planning on Critical Issues; and funding for a yet-to-be-defined “Big Idea(s).”

We also established a name for these resources:  the Nova Fund.

The right section of this page shares the current progress we have made in developing Nova Fund spending.

Have a question about the Nova Fund? Email Communications Manager Jeb Murphy.

 

Timeline of Completed and Ongoing Nova Fund Activities

 Completed Work - 2023

Increased Funding for Current/Recent Priorities - The Board and CAC allocated a portion of the funds to enhance our existing support for work we know is making a difference in Maine. With this in mind, our first Nova Fund grants were to organizations in the existing programs of Health Equity Capacity Building, Health Advocacy, Safety Net Clinic Grants Supporting Access to Care, Comprehensive Reproductive Health, and Community-Led Health Needs Assessments. The $2 million designated for this part of the Nova Fund strategy is allowing grantees across these programs to enhance their work to ensure equitable access to care for all people in Maine.

Ongoing Work - 2024 & 2025

Collaborative Planning on Critical Issues: Health Justice Movement Building - In November of 2023, we brought together 80 individuals including grantees, staff, Board, CAC, and other partners to envision what a strong, successful health justice movement in Maine could look like and to identify how best these resources could contribute. This convening generated a rich set of ideas that a grantee team engaged with over the course of 2024 to prioritize and build out detailed action plans for moving forward. That team’s plans are actively progressing in 2025. These include establishing a Movement School, enhancing critical support for the administrative needs of movement-focused nonprofit organizations, and establishing an ongoing structure to facilitate the efforts of small, organizing and movement-building nonprofits to enhance their alignment and collective action.

 

Collaborative Planning on Critical Issues: Healthcare Workforce - In 2024, staff solicited broad-based input and perspectives on possible strategies to help address Maine’s health care workforce crisis. We then convened a state-wide summit in April 2025 to share and reflect on the information gathered and engage key stakeholders in prioritizing ideas to move forward. Several workgroups are developing concrete action plans and funding opportunities for these resources, with an eye toward making funding decisions by the end of 2025.

 

Big Ideas: We have taken advantage of several opportunities to solicit ideas from key stakeholders, including through the Center for Effective Philanthropy survey of grantees and applicants we conducted in 2024.  As we begin developing a new strategic plan for MeHAF by the end of 2025, we are integrating planning for this priority area with that process.

New in 2025: Responding to the Moment

In April 2025, our Board and CAC considered the political and economic environment and approved a plan to relocate $1.5 million of the Nova Fund resources to respond to current threats to Maine’s communities and nonprofits.

Priorities include:

  • contributing to pooled funds under the leadership of Maine Philanthropy Center and Maine Initiatives providing responsive, low barrier funding to organizations serving those at greatest risk;
  • providing support for organizations focused on communities being most significantly harmed by actions at the federal level, including those led by and supporting the health needs of transgender individuals and immigrants/refugees/asylum-seekers;
  • supporting media/communications vehicles and activities serving Maine that are striving to ensure Maine people have access to accurate and critical information regarding health and health-related issues; and
  • supporting convening/networking of health services providers to engage in contingency and strategy planning for continuity of critical services in the face of major cuts in funding.

We are actively mobilizing these resources to meet pressing needs in each of these areas as rapidly and efficiently as possible.