Please join us in congratulating the five organizations awarded grants by Archstone Foundation’s Board of Directors in the last quarter:
- El Sol Neighborhood Educational Center
- University of Washington
- Coalition for Compassionate Care of California
- Catchafire
- Master Plan for Aging
Three awards were new grants and two were grant renewals. They represent an important step forward in our new strategic plan with its focus on integrating health and social services through the Three Ts —Teams, Training and Technology. Two of the new grants specifically focus on team building and the other is focused on technology. In addition, Archstone Foundation renewed its commitment to the California Master Plan for Aging and its capacity-building support for Southern California nonprofits through its partnership with Catchafire.
Meet the Grantees
Teams
El Sol Neighborhood Educational Center
A one-year $75,000 grant to the El Sol Neighborhood Educational Center will support a project called Sustainability by Building Capacity for Medicare Billing and Strategic Relationships. El Sol was a highly successful participant in the Foundation’s Care Partners Depression in Late-Life Initiative. The new project is designed to help El Sol identify health care partners to bill for depression care and strengthen the organization’s financial sustainability by identifying new sources of income through Medi-Cal and Medicare billing. The project aims to develop the organization’s capacity to train and deploy Community Health Workers in clinics while increasing sustainability through robust billing and reimbursement strategies.
University of Washington AIMS CENTER
A two-year $130,000 grant to the University of Washington (UW) AIMS Center will support its Innovative Approaches to Financing Collaborative Care project. Collaborative Care is a highly effective method for treating common mental health conditions in primary care and other general medical settings. The Foundation-funded Care Partners Depression in Late-Life Initiative demonstrated how a primary care clinic can partner with a community-based organization to deliver effective Collaborative Care that helps depressed older adults. However, there are no tools or materials to assist community-based organizations (CBOs) implementing Collaborative Care in partnership with primary care clinics. This project will build on knowledge gained through our Care Partners project, outlining strategies for financing Collaborative Care when some components are delivered by a CBO and developing a white paper on Collaborative Care billing that will provide guidance about successfully financing Collaborative Care in partnerships between clinics and CBOs.
Technology
Coalition for Compassionate Care of California
A one-year $75,000 grant to the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC) will support its POLST Registry Bridge project. CCCC is a statewide collaboration of healthcare providers, organizations, state agencies, and individuals that has worked for more than 20 years to change the way Californians plan for and provide care for the seriously ill. In the summer of 2021, the California POLST eRegistry Act was enacted to help ensure immediate access for healthcare providers to completed POLST forms during an emergency. (The acronym stands for Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment, and it specifys patient wishes about what treatments they want to receive during a serious illness.) Having an electronic registry for POLST orders was also a recommendation of the Archstone Foundation-supported Master Plan for Aging. CCCC will work closely with the Emergency Medical Services Authority as it develops a plan to design and implement a statewide electronic POLST Registry.
Grant Renewals
Catchafire
A second one-year expenditure responsibility grant of $75,000 was awarded to Catchafire, Inc. to assist the Foundation in providing non-monetary capacity building support to nonprofit grantees and declined applicants. Catchafire is a social enterprise that helps foundations provide capacity building support to nonprofit organizations, social enterprises, and charities at scale by matching them with volunteer consultants who are experts in IT, graphic design, board development, fundraising, and many other valuable services. The partnership with Catchafire allows the Foundation to provide capacity building support to organizations beyond those to which we directly award grants. The grant renewal will give 100 organizations access to the Catchafire platform. During the first year, 30 registered organizations matched on capacity building projects, benefitting from more than 2,500 donated volunteer hours and saving more than $480,000.
Master Plan for Aging
A two-year grant for as much as $300,000 continues support for the California Master Plan for Aging. This grant will provide contract support for the Direct Care Workforce Initiative’s non-in-home support services, a comprehensive statewide communications and outreach plan for the Master Plan, and a tracker allowing the public to see status reports in real time.
Upcoming Request for Proposals
A new round of funding for capacity building—Supporting Diverse Communities and Advancing Racial and Health Equity for Older Adults through Capacity Building—will begin in July. Grants for as much as $50,000 will be awarded for direct operational support in order to help nonprofits work more efficiently and effectively. This opportunity is specifically targeted to organizations serving low-income older people of color so that they can begin to reduce health disparities and advance racial equity through investments in organizational capacity building.
For more information about the latest grants and future funding opportunities, visit our website.
Learn more about the Three Ts on our webinar, April 27th at 9am PT!
Archstone Foundation's Three Ts in Action will feature grantees engaged in this work. Get the details and register here.
Mary Ellen Kullman contributed to this post.
