Frequently asked questions

Point32Health Foundation was formed by the combination of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation and Tufts Health Plan Foundation in 2022.

We serve five New England states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. We build on our legacy foundations and honor existing relationships and commitments made before our combination as we create new connections to community.

We work with communities to support, advocate and advance healthier lives for everyone. As a funder, we support community-led, equity-focused solutions in access to healthy food, healthy aging and behavioral health. We will continue this work through 2024.

Together with community, our board of directors and team, we have identified our north star and mission to guide our future work.

North star: Communities thrive, are great places to grow up and grow old, and everyone experiences equitable health outcomes.

Mission: Together with community, we advance equity in aging, so communities thrive, are great places to grow up and grow old, and everyone experiences equitable health outcomes.

Focus: Equity in aging, beginning in 2025

In 2024, Point32Health Foundation will continue to support access to healthy food, behavioral health and healthy aging.

In 2022, the Foundation engaged Health Resources in Action (HRiA), a local public health research institute, to facilitate statewide listening sessions in the five states we serve. This included focus groups, key informant interviews, and surveys. Throughout this process we engaged with and heard from hundreds of individuals, organizations and other thoughts partners to help shape our path forward. This input informed Point32Health Foundation’s strategy and planning.

Community feedback reinforced and affirmed the need for the Foundation to act beyond funder role. Therefore we also will continue work as advocate, capacity-builder, catalyst and convener to advance community priorities in aging.

We are inspired and excited by our focus because it allows us to support whole person health, build on our successes, and importantly, ensure better outcomes for all our futures. With community, we’ve identified the impact we want to have and how we will invest as we continue our work.

What we will focus on for impact

• Upstream work addressing community factors that affect the health of older adults (i.e., root causes and the social determinants; we do not offer grant funding for medical care)
• ​Continue to support food systems and mental health, key factors to address when advancing equity in aging

What we will fund

• Changing inequitable systems and advancing policy/advocacy
• Capacity-building defined by organizations that are for, by and about communities of color and others experiencing systemic barriers

How we will invest

• General operating support grants
• Multi-year grants

Equity in aging will include support for organizations engaging in systems change and policy and advocacy. In addition, we will invest in capacity-building with organizations that are for, by and about communities of color and others experiencing systemic barriers – leveraging their power and potential to address issues to which they are most proximate.

Through a set of core principles that guide how we engage with community. Rooted in trust, humility, equity, and a commitment to transparency and learning, we will evolve and stay relevant and responsive to community.

Humility

• Being grounded in and responsive to community context
• Being accessible, a “good listener” and a follower to those doing the work
• Trusting what community organizations say, acting on what they share
• Having community define “older people“

Equity

• Being anti-racist
• Using inclusive language to advance asset-based approaches in our work

Transparency

• Monitoring our progress, engaging in learning, increasing our understanding, and identifying where we can support strong work
• Identifying and addressing gaps
• Learning from community and sharing lessons

Point32Health Foundation will continue to fund access to affordable, nutritious food, behavioral health and healthy aging initiatives through 2024. In 2025, equity in aging will be the lens/intersection through which we address the social determinants of health—including housing, access to affordable, nutritious food, transportation, social isolation, mental health, ageism, civic engagement and caregiving.

The Foundation will continue to make new grants each year.

Our community investments grantmaking budget is approximately $8 million annually. This amount does not include sponsorships, employee contributions, volunteering and other supports, including in-kind.

The size and timeframe for each grant depends on the organization and scope of work.

All community commitments will be honored. Current grantees will not see any changes. The team is available for community conversations.

The Point32Health Foundation team will work with and learn from grantees and community on how equity in aging shows up in your work. We will support efforts that prioritize and directly engage older adults, especially in communities of color and others experiencing systemic barriers.

In addition, we will invest in capacity building within organizations that are for, by and about communities of color–and others experiencing systemic barriers. We will leverage their power and potential to address issues to which they are most proximate.

We will support organizations increasing access to affordable, nutritious food, advancing healthy aging, and promoting behavioral health through 2024. In each of these areas, we prioritize community-led solutions that address systemic inequities.

The Foundation will continue making new grants each year.

Our grantmaking process starts with community.

You asked us to eliminate barriers, and we have.

We don’t issue calls for proposals or request letters of intent. Instead, you can reach out to our community investors using our short inquiry form.

The Foundation team is proactively reaching out to equity-centered organizations to learn more about their work. We also welcome you to connect with us.

We prioritize support for organizations that:

• Work on community-based interventions
• Engage in initiatives with the potential to dismantle racist systems
• Work in communities that have experienced historical disinvestment—especially where people of color and others have experienced systemic barriers—and are connected to the people they serve
• Use disruptive approaches to influence systems beyond individual organizations
• Collaborate to expand impact
• Show promise—may be unproven—and take risk

Yes. We cannot do this work alone and shouldn’t. Collaboration is an essential characteristic of our investments in community. It is central to how the Foundation engages with community organizations and other funders.

Our team participates in convenings, stakeholder groups and other community events. We do so to stay proximate while also building and increasing our knowledge and awareness of state and local philanthropic initiatives. We are also members of the regional associations of grantmakers in the states we serve.

To be considered for a sponsorship, requests must be submitted through our online system. We strongly recommend submitting by November 1 for the following year. Requests are reviewed by an enterprise-wide sponsorship team. If you have questions about sponsorships, please email sponsorships@point32health.org.

Capacity-building

Capacity-building should be driven by what an organization says it needs. This type of investment supports a nonprofit’s ability to deliver on its mission effectively and efficiently over time. (Council of Nonprofits). Capacity-building includes developing and strengthening skills, instincts, abilities, processes, and resources that organizations and communities need to survive, adapt and thrive. (United Nations). Examples include professional development, improving volunteer recruitment, creating a communications strategy, consultation for strategic planning, evaluation.

Older adults

We believe those closest to an issue are best positioned to define older adults in their community. People’s experience of aging is based on lived experience and context. When people of color, people with disabilities and people who face systemic barriers grow older, a lifetime of inequities accumulate and exacerbate health disparities.

Organizing

Organizing is an essential element in the ability to create policy change. We define it as deliberate community actions and strategies designed to ensure community voice and participation in decision-making processes.

This can include relationship building, organizing community members, educating the public and decision makers, forming networks or coalitions, communication campaigns and more.

Policy and advocacy

Support for policy and advocacy solutions prioritized and advanced by community. These efforts must include diverse people with lived experience impacted by the issue(s), and people affected also should be informing plans. The result should increase equity.

Activities should align with effective strategies likely to change policies, regulations and systems for the better. This can include the formation of coalitions and networks; the generation of solutions; education and information for the public, decision-makers and media; collaboration with government officials and agencies.

Systems change

Systems change can include a range of activities. Ideally they are coordinated within a strategy intended to influence change across multiple organizations.
These efforts may include:

• efforts to alter the status quo by shifting the function or structure of an identified system
• purposeful interventions
• designed to impact policies, routines, relationships, resources, power structures and values

Systems change requires persuasion and advocacy to change mindsets

We will support systems change efforts that advance solutions prioritized by community. Efforts must include diverse people with lived experience impacted by the issue(s). People affected by the issue should be informing plans, and the impact should contribute to increased equity.

Trust-based philanthropy

The principles and actions promoted by the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project are rooted in advancing equity, shifting power, and building mutually accountable relationships. We are expanding our practice of trust-based philanthropy to act on our values. Examples of trust-based practices include giving multi-year, unrestricted funding and simplifying administrative paperwork. We will demonstrate our commitment to this practice through humility and collaboration, keeping community relationships at the center of what we do.