Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is the largest U.S. health philanthropy. Its grantmaking is divided into dozens of initiatives within four broad focus areas: Healthy Communities; Healthy Children and Families; Leadership for Better Health; and Health Systems.
IP TAKE: With assets exceeding $13 billion in a recent year, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is not only a major health grantmaker, but one of the largest foundations in the United States. In recent years, RWJF has increasingly targeted health equity and the many upstream social and racial factors that contribute to health outcomes. It has broadened its approach to include factors like housing, education, and access to good jobs as important determinants of health. To these ends, in 2014, past RWJF president Risa Lavizzo-Mourey announced that building a “Culture of Health” would become the foundation’s central approach. (See Inside Philanthropy founder David Callahan’s assessment of Lavizzo-Mourey’s transformative 14 years leading the foundation here.) RWFJ is known for supporting evidence-based solutions, seeking multi-sector collaborations, and tackling advocacy and policy change. Its support for movement building and supporting smaller, grassroots and community-based organizations has steadily increased, though it still often funds major institutions and larger nonprofits.
RWJF is a transparent funder. It boasts a comprehensive, searchable grants database dating back to 1972, as well as publishing blogs, press releases, research reports, datasets, and policy briefs. It is also a fairly accessible funder that typically has multiple calls for proposals and active grant opportunities open at any given time. These grant opportunities change frequently, so grantseekers are advised to sign up for funding alerts via the RWJF newsletter and to check back often for updates. Some previous grantees have advised that networking and developing a relationship with RWJF program officers can go a long way towards securing funding.
PROFILE: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was founded by General Robert Wood Johnson II, son of Robert Wood Johnson I, co-founder of pharmaceutical and medical supply giant Johnson & Johnson. Originally founded as the Johnson New Brunswick Foundation, its original mission was to address the needs and well-being of Middlesex County, New Jersey. In 1952, the foundation took on its current name and expanded its mission beyond New Jersey. Since 1972, RWJF has made grants for medical school student aid, health and medicine, public health, medical research, healthcare policy, and human services.
In 2016, the foundation reformulated its strategy to bring all of its grantmaking under the umbrella of creating a “Culture of Health.” Its current mission, as stated, is to build “a Culture of Health that provides everyone in America a fair and just opportunity for health and well-being.” This funder’s four focus areas include Health Systems, Healthy Communities, Healthy Children and Families, and Leadership for Better Health. Within these four overarching focus areas, sub-areas include public and community health, healthcare coverage and access, equitable community development, housing policy and practice, and nurses and nursing, among other programs. RWJF posts active funding opportunities on its website.
Grants for Public Health
Public health is one of RWJF’s primary concerns in its mission to build a “Culture of Health in American communities.” It supports and promotes research, policy reform, impact investment, leadership development, and advocacy across all four of its focus areas:
Healthy Communities supports programs working to “create communities where the physical, economic, and social conditions ensure all residents have a fair opportunity to thrive.”
Subtopics include Equitable Community Development, Health Disparities, and Social Determinants of Health.
This focus area also includes the RWJF Culture of Health Prize, which “celebrates communities where people and organizations are collaborating to build solutions to barriers that have created unequal opportunities.”
Healthy Children and Families supports organizations that work to “ensure that all parents and caregivers have the resources they need to ensure their children and families can thrive,” especially with a view to preventing obesity and its attendant health issues later in life.
Subprograms include Economic Inclusion for Family Wellbeing and Valuing Caregivers and Families.
Leadership for Better Health supports the development of health policy and “connects change leaders nationwide who are working to build a Culture of Health.”
It offers a variety of leadership development programs, such as Clinical Scholars, Culture of Health Leaders, Health Policy Research Scholars, Interdisciplinary Research Leaders, Summer Health Professions Education Program and the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program.
Health Systems helps “hospitals, health departments, insurers, community groups, and others work together to better understand and improve health equity and achieve better health for all.”
Subprograms include Health Care Quality and Value, Health Care Coverage and Access, and Public and Community Health.
Grants for Mental Health
RWJF makes its mental health grants through its Healthy Communities program, which prioritizes organizations that support minorities and children. However, some grants related to mental health projects do appear in some of its other program areas, such as the Leadership for Better Health program, which focuses on funding new and innovative projects, and the Health Systems program, which provides funding to organizations that extend healthcare to under-served populations.
Innovative organizations and projects might have a better chance by soliciting funds through the Pioneering Idea program, but this program generally receives less funding than the foundation’s other areas of work.
Grants for Violence Prevention
Each of RWJFs principal grantmaking programs includes multiple subprograms that effectively expand the foundation’s focus areas to include violence prevention and the impact of violence on health and well-being.
RWJF awards grants to organizations addressing issues such as the impact of adverse childhood experiences, sexual violence, violence prevention and acute crime among young people of color.
One crime and violence initiative that received support from RWJF is Drexel University School of Public Health, which received a grant for its Healing Hurt People program. The program addresses trauma in victims of acute crime. The University of Chicago School of Social Services Administration also received a grant from RWJF for its study concerning the criminal justice and health impacts of the Chicago Police Department’s pre-arrest diversion strategy for opioid addicts.
Important Grant Details:
Grants typically range from $50,000 to $1 million, but are sometimes in the several million. For such a large grantmaker, RWJF is unusually open to providing smaller grants to a large swathe of nonprofit organizations alongside its larger grants. Grantseekers may review the foundation’s Grants Database for more information on the work it has supported.
RWJF supports organizations across the United States, but some legacy programs may prioritize giving in New Jersey, where the foundation was originally incorporated.
While it has focus areas dedicated to health systems, public health, childhood development, and health leadership, it often prefers to fund programs that take a holistic approach that combine aspects of multiple focus areas.
RWJF accepts applications to any of its Active Funding Opportunities. Deadlines vary by grant, but often fall in the spring. Grantseekers should review the foundation’s Grants Process page before applying.
RWJF does not generally fund basic biomedical research, drug therapy or device research or lobbying.
Grantseekers may contact the foundation at mail@rwjf.org or reach out to the program officer assigned to the grant in question for further inquiries.
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