Grants for Public Health

Philanthropy has been a crucial partner in government efforts — filling gaps, making grants to initiatives that help improve public health systems, supporting new research, funding pilot programs to try out innovative solutions, helping to ensure government funding gets where it is most needed, and engaging in policy advocacy. 

Public health philanthropy at a turning point

It’s hard to quantify exactly how much philanthropy goes to public health initiatives, since a lot of public health grantmaking is encompassed within broader health grantmaking or grants for interrelated issues such as reducing pollution (usually categorized as environmental giving). In a field of intersecting issues, private funders tend to focus on particular issue areas.

Health conversion foundations – private foundations that were created upon the sale of nonprofit health organizations to for-profit entities – are important public health grantmakers, especially at the state and local levels. 

Because health and healthcare access are in many ways determined by the community in which one lives, some public health philanthropy is place-based, focused on improving health and wellness in a particular geographic community. California is a leader in this field, with significant public health grantmaking coming from the California Endowment, California Health Care Foundation, and California-based Latino Community Foundation.  

Philanthropic funders have been increasingly focused on the social determinants of health, such as access to good healthcare, education, economic stability, neighborhood conditions, safe housing and health equity. Government initiatives have also focused on these aspects of public health. For instance, in 2021, the CDC declared racism a serious public health threat that affects the well-being of millions of Americans. Will philanthropy stay the course and continue to support the equity initiatives that are at the heart of public health? A perhaps promising signal: The 2025 policy priorities of Grantmakers in Health – the largest network of health funders in the U.S. – are public-health-minded. The funder network’s priorities include health equity and social justice, healthcare access, and improving health among populations that face disproportionate risks.

For information on related areas of grantmaking, see IP’s Grant Finder pages on diseases, mental health, reproductive rights and health, violence prevention, food security, housing and homelessness, and community development.   

Where public health grants are going

In Inside Philanthropy’s State of American Philanthropy brief on Giving for Public Health, we found that women’s health, family planning, substance abuse treatment, and environmental health are the areas of public health that have received the most funding in recent years.

Some public health grantmaking supports national initiatives, while many grants support public health efforts in a specific geographic community. Before such programs came under attack by the Trump administration, some public health grants were geared toward improving health outcomes in specific populations, such as Native American communities, Black women, young children, or LGBTQ+ elders. Recent executive orders and court cases could affect this type of grantmaking. 

Public health grants support direct services, as well as research, education and policy advocacy. Combating health mis- and disinformation is a growing focus of health communications grants. 

Gaps in public health funding

Even before the second Trump administration’s attacks on public health, the nonpartisan Trust for America’s Health described public health and the U.S. public health system as “at risk” as a result of an infrastructure and workforce weakened by chronic underfunding, as well as health mis- and disinformation. Public health has been under attack in the U.S. for several years, as evidence-based public health interventions to minimize harm during the COVID-19 pandemic were perceived by a swath of Americans as restrictions on their freedom. 

Now, sweeping cuts to the federal public health infrastructure and workforce, alongside attacks on diversity and equity programs that could affect everything from who is represented in clinical trials to the diversity of the healthcare professions, will create massive gaps in public health funding in the U.S. and around the world.  

Private philanthropy cannot replace the government when it comes to a coordinated, holistic effort to advance public health for every community in the nation. But philanthropy may attempt to fill some of the gaps created by government abandonment of substantial areas of public health. In doing so, funders concerned with the health of all communities will also have to contend with the Trump administration’s attacks even in the private sector. 

While philanthropy can be an impactful partner in public health funding, it is far from ideal for private philanthropy to replace public spending. As policy analyst Steven A. Edwards put it in a New York Times article warning about the privatization of disease research a decade ago, “the practice of science in the 21st century is becoming shaped less by national priorities or by peer-review groups and more by the particular preferences of individuals with huge amounts of money.” The particular preferences of individuals or private foundations cannot create a comprehensive public health system that serves all communities. Even if philanthropy is able to fill some gaps amid the current crisis, public health requires a future where philanthropy is a supporting partner to a comprehensive national public health system.