Riverside, CA – Effective December 29, Riverside Community Health Foundation (RCHF) has announced an upcoming shift towards proactive grantmaking, a departure from RCHF’s practice of responsive grantmaking since the program was established in 1997.

The shift is in line with current trends in grantmaking, as funders strive to be more strategic with how they use their resources in order to delve deeper into persistent areas of concern and make longterm commitments to address them. While responsive grantmaking involves providing grants to
accommodate requests from nonprofits for programs that fall within the funder’s mission and guidelines, proactive grantmaking (also known as strategic grantmaking) is grantmaking with more focused goals, and a defined set of strategies for how a foundation wants to accomplish those goals.

During the year of 2017, RCHF temporarily halted its regular grants program in order to gain insight on the community’s greatest health needs and adjust the Foundation’s priorities and strategies to align accordingly. RCHF used this period to engage in a community assessment, gather input from community stakeholders, scan existing Riverside area initiatives, and engage in dialogue about opportunities for improving effectiveness and defining areas of focus.

The Foundation has identified three priority funding areas for its grantmaking program: Heart Disease and Stroke; Diabetes; and Behavioral Health (including mental health and substance use). In the next several months, RCHF will work to define a proactive grant program to address these priority areas for
the Riverside and Jurupa Valley communities by supporting best practices and promoting change through collaboration.

By June of 2018, Riverside Community Health Foundation expects to release information on its new grantmaking program, which will be aligned with its three identified priority areas. The funding pause will remain in effect until the new grants program is launched.

In January 2018, the grantmaking program will resume for applicant organizations which qualify for RCHF’s inpatient funding area (qualified applicants are entities which provide hospital services through a non-profit or governmental hospital or an insurance product). RCHF’s Inpatient funds are restricted
for the provision of Inpatient health care programs, subsidizing or reimbursing inpatient healthcare, or medical insurance for medically indigent populations residing in the RCHF service area (92501, 92502, 92503, 92504, 92505, 92506, 92507, 92508, 92509, 92518, 92521, 92522 and 91752).

Riverside Community Health Foundation is a 501(c) (3) non-profit, public benefit corporation with a mission to improve the health and well-being of Riverside residents. Since 1997, RCHF has granted over $33.3 million to the Riverside community.