Mental Health Grants
Learn about mental health grants by exploring our curated list of top mental funders below. Members can also research funding opportunities using the search tool for GrantFinder. Become a member.
Key Funders
- Ballmer Group
- Bloomberg Philanthropies
- Steve and Alexandra M. Cohen Foundation
- Duke Endowment
- Hanley Family Foundation
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- McKnight Foundation
- National Institute of Mental Health
- John Pritzker Family Fund
- San Francisco Foundation
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation
- Stanley Family Foundation
- Wellcome Trust
Funding Trends for Mental Health Grants
More than 1 in 5 U.S. adults experiences mental illness in any given year, while 1 in 20, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, lives with a serious condition. Among children 3-17, about 9.8% have been diagnosed with ADHD, and 9.4% with anxiety (CDC). The CDC found that 15.1% of U.S. adolescents had a major depressive episode in the single year 2018-2019. By 2024, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called the youth mental health crisis “the defining public health challenge of our time.”
Where are mental health grants going?
Annual grant totals for mental health lag far behind giving for other health issues – well below levels commensurate with the widespread impact of mental health on individuals and communities. That said, great visibility for mental health issues have led to a significant increase in giving in recent years.
Grantmaking for mental health derives from relatively small, family-run charitable foundations, often the result of a personal commitment to the issue. These smaller, more nimble givers work to advance innovations in care and policy both regionally and nationally. An increasing number of major health-focused foundations are devoting greater resources to mental health and making connections across their portfolios. In 2022, mental health was one of the top four areas of health grantmaking, according to Giving USA.
Grantmaking for mental health overlaps with grantmaking for public health, criminal justice reform, brain research, substance use and addiction, education, homelessness, and other issues.
Mental health grants also invest in various areas – from research to crisis intervention, suicide prevention, and community mental health resource centers and services. While funding direct services tends to lead giving trends, growing areas of funding interest include mental healthcare for youth, such as school-based programs, as well as alternatives to criminalization of mental illness. Indeed, as much as 44% percent of people in local jails and 43% of people in state prisons across the U.S. have a diagnosed mental disorder (Prison Policy Initiative). Some funders make mental health grants as part of a holistic giving program focused on a particular population, such as veterans or youth.
History of mental health philanthropy
As public funding gets slashed despite increasing needs,, only 1.3% of all foundation funding has gone to mental health initiatives, according to Mindful Philanthropy. Grantmaking for mental health was relatively flat for many years, but that seems to be changing, as increased visibility of mental health and its interrelatedness with overall health as well as many social issues has prompted some large gifts from major donors and increasing attention to mental health from large health foundations, IP found in our report on Giving for Mental Health.
Gaps in mental health funding
While behavioral research is a leading area of grants for mental health, funding for mental health research is far below funding for research into other health issues such as cancer and heart disease, which affect similar numbers of people. Funding is also unmatched to need across a range of mental health issues. For example, the U.S. has the highest rate of death by suicide among peer wealthy nations, yet a response to this national epidemic is “significantly underfunded” and “heavily dependent on small-dollar grants from local funders and community foundation donors,” IP’s Dawn Wolfe reported.
Mindful Philanthropy reports that there are also gaps in funding for prevention and early intervention, access to treatment, and wraparound services for lifelong recovery and support.
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Additional Resources
Mindful Philanthropy, a funder collaborative launched with the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, aims to “expand philanthropy for mental health, addiction and community wellbeing initiatives.”
Grantmakers in Health, the largest philanthropic affinity group in the sector, has a section of its website dedicated to behavioral health with research, opinion pieces and meeting information for interested funders.
National Alliance on Mental Illnessis perhaps the best known association in the country focused on mental health concerns. Be sure to see what NAMI is up to, especially as it relates to advocacy and public policy around mental health stigma and integration with physical health.
