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Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

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OVERVIEW: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is one of the largest health-focused philanthropies in the United States. Its grantmaking centers health equity and increasingly addresses structural racism, community power, healthcare systems, reproductive justice, economic inclusion, caregiving, community development and the social and economic conditions that shape health.

IP TAKE: With more than $13 billion in assets and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual charitable disbursements, RWJF is a major force in U.S. health philanthropy. But grantseekers should look beyond the word “health.” The foundation increasingly approaches health through the systems and conditions that shape it, including structural racism, housing, family economic security, caregiving, community power, reproductive justice, public-health accountability and the financialization of healthcare. Its current strategy calls for transforming systems rather than improving them only at the margins.

In 2025, foundation president Richard Besser reaffirmed the foundation’s commitments in light of “the severe consequences” that the Trump administration would likely wreak on “health in America.” RWJF is known for supporting evidence-based solutions, seeking multi-sector collaborations, and tackling advocacy and policy change. Its support for movement building and grassroots health organizations has steadily increased, though it still mainly gives to major institutions and larger nonprofits.

RWJF is more accessible than an “invitation-only” label suggests, but there is no general rolling unsolicited-proposal process. The foundation says its grants typically begin with a competitive call for proposals, and it also funds through open calls for ideas, challenges and prize competitions, as well as direct solicitations. Access therefore depends heavily on what opportunities are open at a given time. Grantseekers should sign up for funding alerts via the RWJF newsletter and check back often for updates. The most likely way through the door here is to become visible within this funder’s ecosystem.

For organizations without an existing RWJF relationship, the strongest route in is usually to become visible in the ecosystems the foundation is already supporting: health and reproductive justice networks, community-power coalitions, public-health and healthcare reform efforts, family economic-security advocacy, community development, and community-engaged research. Partnerships matter. Recent calls have explicitly favored or required substantive roles for community-based organizations, and some have permitted fiscal sponsors. RWJF is capable of making very large grants to national institutions and intermediaries, but smaller and newer organizations should not assume they are automatically out of the running; recent competitive opportunities have included $50,000 community grants and calls explicitly prioritizing organizations new to RWJF.

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.” RWJF is dedicated “to taking bold leaps to transform health in our lifetime” by “side-by-side with communities, practitioners, and institutions to achieve health equity faster and pave the way, together, to a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right.”

RWJF currently organizes its work around four broad focus areas: Transforming Health and Healthcare Systems, Healthy Communities, Healthy Children and Families, and Leadership for Better Health. Across this work, it has also established three long-range “generational goals”: Economic Inclusion for Family Wellbeing; Equitable and Accountable Public Health and Healthcare Systems; and Healthy and Equitable Community Conditions.

Grants for Public Health, Racial Equity and Community Development

Public health remains central to RWJF’s work, but its definition of health extends far beyond medical care. The foundation funds research, policy and systems change, organizing and community power, leadership development, narrative work, community development and impact investing.

Transforming Health and Healthcare Systems is now organized around four major priorities: Confronting Structural Racism, Public Health Accountable to Communities, Health Over Profit and Reproductive Justice. RWJF says it invests in grassroots leaders, movement organizations and community power to change the systems that shape health. Its work includes anti-racist policy change, public-health accountability, organizing by healthcare and public-health workers, alternatives to profit-driven healthcare models, and culturally grounded reproductive and birth care.

  • Confronting Structural Racism in Healthcare supports efforts led by communities most harmed by inequitable healthcare policies and practices, including policy change, community power and institutional accountability.
  • Public Health Accountable to Communities backs organizations and leaders seeking to give communities greater influence over governmental public-health decisions, policies and practices.
  • Health Over Profit focuses on harms associated with the financialization of healthcare, including private equity and investor ownership, and supports advocates and organizations developing more community-centered and equitable alternatives.
  • Reproductive Justice supports organizations and leaders working on reproductive and birth justice, community power, culturally grounded care, anti-racist policy change and Black midwifery. A recent award, for example, provided $700,000 in 2025 to support Ancient Song Doula Services’ birth-equity work in New Jersey, according to RWJF’s awarded-grants database.

RWJF continues to work on Healthcare Quality and Value, Healthcare Coverage and Access, and Public and Community Health, but it now labels these as additional topics rather than the core priorities of the health-systems portfolio.

  • Healthy Communities supports efforts to improve the physical, economic and social conditions that shape health.
    • Current topics include Equitable Community Development, Health Disparities and Social Determinants of Health, while related work addresses housing, infrastructure, better data and community power. Housing, water infrastructure, transportation, food access, neighborhood conditions and economic opportunity are all relevant here.
    • A 2026 Local Data for Equitable Communities call, for example, offered up to 30 grants of $50,000 for nonprofit-led projects using local data to address inequities in community conditions. Fiscal sponsorship was expressly permitted. The competition is now closed.
    • RWJF also uses impact investing as part of its community-development strategy. Since 2010, it has committed $625 million to deposits, loans, equity investments and guarantees aimed at improving health and racial equity. Current priorities include Black and Brown homeownership and economic inclusion, community development finance, water infrastructure and program-related investments in New Jersey. RWJF made more than $24 million in impact investments to six organizations in 2025.
    • RWJF’s targeted childhood-obesity commitment ran from 2007 through 2025 and involved $1 billion in commitments. Related food, nutrition and community-health work continues, but the dedicated national initiative has ended.
  • Healthy Children and Families now focuses primarily on Economic Inclusion for Family Wellbeing and Valuing Caregivers and Families, rather than childhood obesity.
    • Economic Inclusion for Family Wellbeing seeks changes to economic and social systems so families have the resources they need to thrive. Areas of interest include tax policy, economic security, guaranteed income, racial wealth disparities and alternatives to systems that undervalue caregiving.
    • Valuing Caregivers and Families supports research on care and caregiving, narrative change and advocates working to ensure caregivers and families have resources such as adequate wages, healthcare and paid time off.
  • Leadership for Better Health, also described by RWJF as Powering Leadership to Transform Health, supports health and social-justice leaders seeking to change inequitable policies, systems and institutions. Current priorities include leaders dismantling structural racism in healthcare; Black women, Indigenous women and other women of color advancing economic justice; and leaders working to make health institutions more equitable and representative of the people they serve.
    • Current or featured initiatives include the Black Women’s Executive Directors Program, Community Solutions for Health Equity, Consortium Dedicated to Health Equity Education, HBCU Medical School Initiative and JUSTICE SQUARED. The programs emphasize leadership development, networks, community accountability and institutional change.

Grantseekers should be careful with several better-known RWJF leadership programs that are winding down or no longer recruiting. Health Policy Research Scholars welcomed its ninth and final cohort in September 2025. Interdisciplinary Research Leaders was part of the Change Leadership Initiative, whose stated program period ended March 31, 2025. And RWJF’s funding of the Summer Health Professions Education Program ends after the 2026 cohort.

The future of the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program is less clear. Its applicant page says RWJF did not support a 2025 cohort and program leaders were exploring a different model for 2026, while a separate program notice says RWJF would not support cohorts “in 2025 and beyond.” Prospective applicants should therefore confirm the current funding structure directly with the program rather than assume that an RWJF-supported competition is available.

    Grants for Health Equity Research

    Health Equity Research for Action (HERA) is a new community-driven, action-oriented research program designed to support research that incorporates community knowledge and produces findings that organizers, advocates, policymakers and other decision-makers can use. The program is operated in partnership with Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Morehouse School of Medicine and Michigan State University’s Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health.

    • HERA’s first CFP, From Insight to Action: Health Equity Research that Meets This Moment, sought community-based organizations and research partners for community-centered research addressing structural barriers to health equity. RWJF expected roughly 20 grants totaling as much as $8 million, with individual awards of up to $500,000 over as long as 36 months. The application is closed, but RWJF says it anticipates another HERA CFP in early 2027.

    Important Grant Details:

    Grants typically range from $range from $125 to $12M., but are sometimes in the millions. RWJF’s latest available Form 990-PF reports 2024 revenue of about $855.3 million, expenses of about $966.7 million, charitable disbursements of about $791 million and year-end assets of about $13.4 billion.

    • For such a large grantmaker, RWJF is unusually open to providing smaller grants to a large swathe of nonprofit organizations alongside its larger grants.
    • RWJF supports work across the United States and maintains a significant commitment to New Jersey, its home state. Its funding also includes national policy organizations, universities, community-based organizations, advocacy and movement groups, philanthropic intermediaries and research institutions. The foundation’s searchable awarded-grants database dates back decades and is one of the best tools for prospecting this funder.
    • Grantseekers should not assume that only major universities or national nonprofits are competitive. Some RWJF opportunities have specifically welcomed community-based organizations, fiscally sponsored projects and organizations new to the foundation. Eligibility varies substantially by CFP.
    • RWJF does not appear to maintain a general rolling unsolicited-proposal process. According to its grant process guidance, funding typically begins with competitive CFPs, while other awards result from open calls, competitions and direct solicitation. As of August 24, 2026, its active funding page says the foundation is not accepting grant proposals. Grantseekers should sign up for Funding Alerts, especially given the anticipated next HERA call in early 2027.
    • When an opportunity is open, RWJF identifies a program officer or program contact for the call. The foundation says these contacts can answer questions and help applicants understand the application process and timeline. Grantseekers should follow the instructions for the individual opportunity rather than sending an unrelated proposal to foundation staff.
    • Individual CFPs may contain significant eligibility and funding restrictions, including restrictions affecting biomedical or clinical research, lobbying, capital projects or applicant type. These requirements are opportunity-specific, so applicants should review the complete CFP and FAQs rather than treating restrictions from one RWJF program as foundation-wide rules.
    • 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 the inquiry form on its contact page. Alternatively, reach out to the program officer assigned to a specific opportunity for further inquiries. The foundation’s phone number is (877) 843-7953.

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