San Diego, CA. January 9, 2020. For the 11th consecutive year, Alliance Healthcare Foundation (Alliance) has awarded Mission Support grants to nonprofit organizations committed to advancing health and wellness. The 20 San Diego recipients were selected December 13, 2019, after an inclusive and detailed process that began earlier this year.

The 20 recipients in San Diego County are:

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Of the 155 applications received this year, 77 of the applications were repeat submissions from the prior year.

This year’s San Diego Mission Support decision making process involved a comprehensive analysis by our Impact Research team which assessed mission alignment, demonstrated ability to deliver impact for the target population, as well as the depth and/or breadth of that potential impact. Members of the Program Committee worked diligently to review all applications to develop a set of funding recommendations to the Alliance Board of Trustees, who ultimately made the final funding determinations.

“With hundreds of incredible non-profits in San Diego working diligently to address complex social and health issues, it is a difficult decision to narrow applications down to the roughly 10% we have the resources to fund,” said Sarah Lyman, Alliance’s Executive Director. “That being the case, we are honored to provide support to the 2020 grantees, and are immensely grateful for their impact. See below for a glimpse into some of their important work.”

Through the Mission Support program, Alliance aims to provide funding to organizations that advance health and wellness for those in need. Grants are awarded to nonprofits in San Diego who serve the most vulnerable of our populations. Grant amounts range from $25,000 to $100,000 per recipient, totaling $815,000. Organizations may use the funding we provide as they determine, allowing them to apply the grant in a way that best meets the most pressing needs of the people they serve.

“In past years, we’ve also awarded Mission Support funding to nonprofits in Imperial County. However, with the establishment of the Imperial Valley Wellness Foundation earlier this year, their board of trustees will be conducting a separate Mission Support cycle, beginning January 15, 2020,” continued Lyman.

 

“Our Mission Support program continues to provide core operating support to organizations working to improve the health and wellness of underserved populations,” said AHF Board Chair, Dr. Joe Ramsdell. “This year, we received a record number of submissions, making it an especially difficult decision when there are so many organizations doing great work in our community.”

 

 

 

 

 

Here are just a few examples of the organizations we are proud to support this year:

Alliance Health Cinic focuses on refugees, immigrants, the underserved, underinsured, and uninsured. They provide primary care, dental care, and mental health services—all of which are so important to the population served because of what they’ve gone through before coming to the U.S.

Just in Time for Foster Youth: Executive Director Don Wells says “Just in Time participants, young adults in transition (ages 18-26), indicate that lasting change in their lives come from four key drivers: 1) knowledge and experiences to help navigate their future; 2) understanding their strengths and self-limiting beliefs; 3) owning their story and finding their authentic voice, and most importantly, 4) a consistent community of positive support.”

License to Freedom is a “team of advocates and family therapists who work with those affected by family violence,” says Dilkhwaz Ahmed, M.S., Executive Director. “We are the only organization in San Diego County who provide these culturally and linguistically sensitive services to refugees and immigrants, where clients feel safe and cared for because of the trust we have built in the community over the last two decades.”

Paving Great Futures: “Our programming focuses on six core competencies: entrepreneurship; job readiness; financial literacy; responsible life skills; community service, and civic engagement,” says Barry Harris, Jr., President & CEO. “We are really making a difference in the mind shift of individuals. We push them to want better for themselves; to do more for themselves, and to build on their own dreams, hopes and aspirations.”

Meals-on-Wheels is an organization that’s been supporting seniors in San Diego for 60 years. “We’ve changed considerably in the last two years,” says Debbie Case, President & CEO. “We’ve taken technology under our wing with a mobile app. We have the ability now to report non-emergency Change in Condition of our seniors to our Service Centers and the client’s emergency contact. Currently, 14% of our clients have had some change in their condition that we have been able to mitigate before they end up in emergency departments, hospitals or long term care facilities.”

“It’s vital to our mission to support great organizations,” said Lyman. “Alliance recognizes that our limited capital is insufficient to meet the current needs. Consequently, we and other funders—both public and private—must continue to work together to evolve our current paradigm.”

To learn more about Alliance Healthcare Foundation’s Mission Support funding program, visit this link.

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About Alliance Healthcare Foundation

We work to advance health and wellness for the most vulnerable in San Diego and Imperial counties through collaborative funding, convening and advocacy.

We envision a San Diego and Imperial County region where equitable health resources lead to universal health and well-being. We believe wellness is a state of complete physical, mental, spiritual, economic and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

We currently operate a portfolio of five programs:

1. i2 Innovation Initiative — also referred to as “venture philanthropy”—based on the thesis that innovation capital (often high risk, high reward) is needed to transform the current paradigm (high cost and poor outcomes) and improve quality, increase capacity and reduce costs;
2. Mission Support—based on the belief that trusting those closest to our constituents and providing core operating support for great organizations will best advance our mission;
3. Responsive Funding—based on the belief that it is important to be responsive to time-sensitive community needs and opportunities;
4. InvestUp—based on the belief that it is important to actively and strategically be looking for ways to meaningfully advance our mission and it is worth spending some or all of our corpus—beyond the earnings off of our endowment—if we can substantively, sustainably and positively change the dynamics; and
5. Impact Investments–based on the thesis that we can activate our investment portfolio to achieve more positive impact.

Our History. In 1982, the San Diego Community Healthcare Alliance (Alliance) created the first Preferred Provider Organization/Network (PPO) in the United States. From 1989 through 1994, the Alliance funded Alliance Healthcare Foundation (AHF) through profits from its Community Care Network (CCN) operations. In 1994, Alliance sold CCN to a national healthcare company and channeled the proceeds from CCN’s sale into an endowment of $83 million for AHF. That endowment has enabled funding of approximately $64 million (USD) in direct funding and approximately $41 million (USD) from national and local funding partners in San Diego and Imperial counties. Our endowment holds approximately $80 million in assets today, with funding for programs and operations derived from endowment investment earnings.

AHF Media contact:
Karen Winston, Communications Director, Alliance Healthcare Foundation
P 858-348-6472 E karen.winston@alliancehf.org