Four Ways the Inasmuch Foundation Awards Health and Human Services Grants

photo:  Monkey Business Images/shutterstock — photo: Monkey Business Images/shutterstock

With a strong focus on the state of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma City-based Inasmuch Foundation has stood out for its big capital campaign support in the past. In recent grant cycles, this funder has given extensively for local building repairs and upgrades, and these are the kinds of projects its largest grants tend to support.

But in grant cycle after cycle, health and human services continues to be the top funding area for the Inasmuch Foundation. With a broad goal of strengthening families, these grants reflect four different kinds of investments.

One of these strategies is basic needs grants that often address the topics of housing and shelter for vulnerable populations. Inasmuch provided a $15,000 grant to Dragonfly Home for an emergency shelter for victims of sex trafficking and a $75,000 grant to HopeHouse OKC to provide safe, nurturing, housing communities for homeless families.

The foundation also supports its health and human services mission by providing grants that promote access to quality healthcare. One example of this type of giving is the $25,000 grant Inasmuch gave to the Urban League of Greater Oklahoma City for education, job, housing, health and other programs that promote social and economic equality.

Mental health and substance abuse is a third component of the Inasmuch Foundation’s health and human services program. For example, the funder recently gave $25,000 to Resonance for community reentry programs that include intensive substance abuse treatment and post-release transitional work and housing.

Finally, the foundation awards research-related health and human services grants to local groups in Oklahoma, but these grants tend to be a bit fewer and farther between. Otherwise, big recent topics of interest in this category of giving include children in the foster care system, incarceration for female offenders with children, and early childhood care.

In total, the foundation awarded $4.1 million in grants to 47 organizations that serve Oklahoma communities in its most recent giving cycle. More grants were awarded in the health and human services category than anything else in this cycle, which is fairly typical for this funder.

Bob Ross, president and CEO of Inasmuch Foundation, said in a press release:

As evidenced by the sheer volume of grant applications received this cycle, nonprofit organizations across Oklahoma are working hard to serve their communities. We are proud to support the efforts of our fellow Oklahomans through the grants announced today.

The next due date for Inasmuch Foundation letters of inquiry is August 15. In addition to the foundation’s Oklahoma grantmaking, Inasmuch also gives (to a lesser extent) to nonprofits that serve Colorado Springs, Colorado and for high-quality journalism efforts based locally and nationwide.