Diseases Funders
Learn more about grants for diseases by exploring Inside Philanthropy’s list of top disease nonprofits below. Subscribers can also explore funders using our Grantfinder Search Tool. Become a member today.
Funding Trends
Grants for diseases support research into prevention, treatment, and cures; awareness campaigns to increase public understanding of diseases; multipronged efforts to eradicate diseases; direct services for patients; and emergency response for disease-related crises like pandemics. Disease-related philanthropy also includes efforts like increasing access to safe drinking water, which can reduce sanitation-related diseases, or funding the training and hiring of community health workers whose front-line care can reduce the burden of disease.
Much funding in this area comes from people who have survived or are struggling with a particular disease, or their loved ones — for example, Michael J. Fox’s giving for Parkinson’s and the Rainin Foundation’s grants related to inflammatory bowel disease. Those examples reflect another way this area of giving is vast and diverse: Funding related to diseases encompasses many diseases, including childhood diseases, the many types of cancer, and diabetes.
These funders tend to focus on a particular disease, such as infectious diseases or noncommunicable diseases, or a certain type of cancer.
And not all diseases receive equal support from philanthropy; additionally, funding priorities are affected by such factors as personal connection, potential for impact, and stigma.
Much of the funding in this area goes to large institutions like biomedical science research universities and hospitals. There are also grants for doctors and scientists, and increasingly, grants for cross-disciplinary collaborative teams of researchers. The Elton John AIDS Foundation stands out as one of relatively few funders that consistently supports front-line work and gets resources to marginalized communities.
Though the cost of treating a disease can be enormous, there is little institutional philanthropy going to support individual patients. In the United States, which lacks a universal public healthcare system, gaps in financial resources for individual patients’ expenses are often filled by crowdfunding, with friends, family, and even strangers making individual, non-tax-deductible gifts.
As in most sectors of philanthropy, funders are increasingly taking diversity and equity into consideration. In philanthropy for diseases, this includes working to understand how economic and social issues contribute to health disparities, or supporting increased diversity in clinical trials.
Other trends in disease-related philanthropy include support for collaboration across disciplines and institutions, as well as venture philanthropy initiatives such as the Parkinson’s Foundation’s Venture Philanthropy Fund to support drug discovery and development, and the Mark Foundation’s investments in cancer research startups.
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