Health Forward Foundation is awarding $4.9 million in grants to 33 nonprofit organizations through funding that advances civic engagement and supports advocacy coalitions.

The grants are built around the understanding that powerful communities are healthy communities and that the healthiest communities tend to be those that are more civically engaged.  

According to their website, Health Forward’s “approach to redistributing and sharing power with the people we serve is through advancing participation in democracy, amplifying community-driven movements, and strengthening small, community-based organizations and leaders.” writes.

These grants are designed to help fund this work using three strategies:  

Building organizational capacity and leadership development, 

Advancing participation in democracy, and 

Supporting community-driven efforts to redistribute and share power.  

A few of the organizations and work funded in this round of “Power” grants include:  

Urban Summit, $300,000 to help build their capacity by growing the organization from a volunteer to a professional staff in order to increase civic engagement among historically excluded people and communities.

Shirley’s Kitchen Cabinet, $100,000 to create a Black women’s advocacy table that drives policy change through collective activism of Black women and Black women-led groups.

MORE2, $150,000 to fund a full-time community organizer position that will recruit, train, and develop formerly imprisoned people into a powerful base of leaders that will influence public policies and systems adversely impacting their lives.

Missouri Jobs and Justice Voters Action, $250,00 to build and lead a statewide coalition to educate voters about the November 2024 opportunity to raise the state minimum wage and guarantee access to paid sick leave for all workers.

For a complete list of the grant recipients and their programming, go to bit.ly/3PmaDvM.