Sevier News Messenger Sevier County News and Opinion
Sevier County is one of the 19 counties in Humana’s Knoxville Bold Goal market where nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply for the 2018 Humana Foundation Strategic Community Investment grant.
The Humana Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Humana, is pleased to invite nonprofit organizations in the Knoxville area to apply for a Humana Foundation Strategic Community Investment before Friday, April 27, 2018. The Humana Foundation is looking for local organizations whose results will ensure that people have daily access to healthy food, and that residents are making the social connections they need to improve and sustain positive health outcomes. The first step of the process – the Request for Application (RFA) – can be found at humanafoundation.org/investments. After reviewing the RFAs, the Humana Foundation will then ask a group of finalist organizations to go through a more detailed application process in May.
Each recipient will receive no less than $500,000, and will have the opportunity to receive continuing funding for one or two additional years based on their success.
Strategic Community Investments in ‘Bold Goal’ communities
Through the foundation’s new Strategic Community Investments work, it will invest $6.5 million in nonprofit organizations operating in eight communities, including Humana’s headquarters hometown of Louisville, Ky., plus San Antonio; New Orleans, Baton Rouge, La.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Tampa Bay, Fla.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Broward County, Fla. Each investment will be no smaller than $500,000.
These are all communities where Humana Inc., in 2015, began pursuing its 2020 ‘Bold Goal’ to “improve the health of the communities we serve 20 percent by 2020 because we make it easy for people to achieve their best health.”
“Through our new Strategic Community Investments work, the Humana Foundation is signaling its intent to transition from a ‘funder of programs’ to an ‘investor in results,’” said Walter Woods, CEO of the Humana Foundation. “With these major investments, we intend to target community models that can be scaled for maximum impact, focused on the broader gains that will result from the achievements our partner organizations will be able to make. And they’ll need to clearly demonstrate that by detailing targets and milestones as part of the application process.”
Organizations that receive a Humana Foundation Strategic Community Investment in 2018 will then have an opportunity to receive continuing funding for one or two additional years – based on the specific results they achieve over a 12-month period.
Also starting in 2018, the Humana Foundation has begun work to identify partner organizations – at the national, regional and local level – because joining forces with like-minded entities can result in more impactful, broad-based and sustainable change.
Louisville focus for Strategic Investments:
Post-Secondary Success (sustained employment); Asset Security
“As we announced earlier this year, the Louisville investments will go to nonprofit organizations that help residents here achieve post-secondary success (sustained employment), and asset security: organizations that connect people to resources that offer training and credentialing, allowing them to be hired for a job they keep, that pays a living salary, and offers opportunity for career mobility,” Woods said. “We want more people to protect the assets they are cultivating with the goal of building financial security that will lead to financial stability and then ultimately financial mobility.”
Focus for Strategic Investments in Humana’s additional Bold Goal communities:
Food Security; Social Connection
In each of its Bold Goal communities, Humana is addressing Social Determinants of Health, particularly food security and social connection. Complementary to Humana Inc.’s Bold Goal work, the Humana Foundation will begin making Strategic Community Investments in nonprofit organizations whose results ensure that people have daily access to healthy food, and that people are making the social connections they need to improve and sustain positive health outcomes.
“In those communities outside of Louisville, the community investments we make in 2018 will go to identifying and scaling organizations with the greatest impact on improving and sustaining positive health outcomes for socially isolated and food-insecure residents,” Woods said. “These root-cause influencers on health clearly have an impact on people’s ability to live healthy lives, and we are in a position to partner with nonprofit organizations to positively impact these issues.”
Humana Foundation Strategic Community Investment Grant Application Process:
Any organization – or consortium of organizations – interested in applying for a Humana Foundation Strategic Community Investment must fill out a Request for Application (RFA) and submit it to the Humana Foundation no later than April 27, 2018. After reviewing all RFAs it receives, the Humana Foundation will then ask a group of finalist organizations to go through a more detailed application process in May. (A link to the online RFA will be available on the “Our Investments” page of the Humana Foundation website beginning April 1, 2018.)
Headquarters Hometown Community Relations
Through a new Headquarters Hometown Community Relations initiative, the Humana Foundation will award an additional $2 million to Louisville-area organizations in 2018, with slightly more than $1 million of that in grants ranging from $25,000 up to a maximum of $100,000. Organizations interested in applying for one of these grants will do so later this year, when the foundation will make final details of the program available. Also as part of this program, nearly $1 million will go to established foundation partners such as Metro United Way and the Fund for the Arts.
And, building on 2017 when Humana employees reported volunteering 108,000 hours in the Louisville area, the foundation will incorporate a significant new skills-based volunteerism component into the Community Relations initiative. This will result in more Humana employees in Louisville putting their strongest business skills to work for area nonprofits.
The focus for these grants will be organizations providing critical safety-net services as well as those focused on civic and cultural opportunities.
“As the largest employer in downtown Louisville and the largest publicly traded company based in Kentucky – we understand the unique needs and expectations of a company like ours in our headquarters hometown,” Woods added. “This program – in addition to our new Strategic Community Investments work – will improve and sustain more positive health outcomes.”
Additional Giving
The foundation will give an additional $5.5 million in 2018 through an array of popular long-standing programs such as its matching-gifts program for Humana employees, Humana Foundation scholarships to children of employees, and disaster-relief support, to name just some examples. The foundation has increased its matching gifts for all Humana employees in 2018 who choose to take advantage of the program.
The $14 million in total planned philanthropy for 2018 represents the most the Humana Foundation has contributed in a year, and is approximately 20 percent more than the foundation gave in 2017, when it awarded $11.6 million – which also represented the foundation’s highest-ever one-year giving total.
“We are making significant changes in 2018 at the Humana Foundation, in part, because the communities we serve have increasingly greater needs,” Woods said. “The Humana Foundation’s future work will address root causes and, therefore, have the potential of creating improved and sustained positive health outcomes. We’re excited not only about the results we will be able to achieve, but also the human gains that will come from achieving those results.”
