Previous Programs and Funding Strategies

In 1985, we awarded our first 44 grants—responding to the significant need for healthcare access, education and outreach in Northern California’s underserved communities. While grantees included local chapters of the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, most funding went to smaller, community-based organizations, and to regional college and university programs.

Seed money helped support family social services, senior peer counseling, suicide prevention, social and healthcare services for seniors, healthcare education in elementary schools, construction of a women’s and children’s shelter, a health publications library, medical equipment purchases, and services designed to benefit patients challenged by AIDS, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, alcoholism and other diseases.

By the late 1980s and 1990s, we began to focus funding for specific programs and initiatives. These included the Northern California AIDS Initiative, Prenatal Care Access Initiative, Community Partnerships for Healthy Children and Managed Care. The brightSMILES Dental Partnership promoted children's oral health and disease prevention from 1999 to 2010. From 2002 through 2007, the Organizational Development grant program worked with health-related private nonprofit organizations to build organizational capacity.