Health 1st Foundation Inc.

Health 1st Foundation operates on a closed, relationship-driven model that sets it apart from most Georgia health funders: it does not accept unsolicited proposals. Per its website and application-restriction language, organizations are "identified and invited to apply" by the foundation's Grant Review Committee, a volunteer body layered under a three-person board — Chairman Leroy A. Wilson, the foundation's only compensated officer at $36,000/year, plus unpaid Vice Chairman Ed Wood and Treasurer James Washington. This lean, all-volunteer governance, with no salaried program staff beyond an Executive Director role described on the "Who We Are" page, means funding decisions run through a small circle of Atlanta business and medical leaders, and personal familiarity with that circle matters more than a polished cold pitch.

The grantee list bears this out: the same organizations recur year after year. Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College each received 4 separate grants totaling $111,000 apiece; Morehouse School of Medicine received 3 grants totaling $60,000; the Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia, Alzheimer's Association, Loving Arms Cancer Outreach, Adult Disability Medical Healthcare, and Special Needs Cobb each show 3-4 grant awards in the record. This is a foundation that builds long, multi-year funding relationships with a stable roster rather than rotating through new grantees annually — of 69 recorded grants, the large majority went to organizations receiving 2 or more awards.

For a first-time applicant, the practical implication is clear: cold applications through the web portal at health1stfoundation.com/grant-application/ are unlikely to succeed absent a prior connection. The realistic path in is a warm introduction — through a board member, a current grantee's leadership, or the historically Black colleges and medical institutions (Clark Atlanta, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Tennessee's Meharry Medical College) that anchor the portfolio, suggesting an affinity for HBCU-connected health and education institutions. Once invited, the process becomes a standard document-heavy proposal (cover letter, budget, Form 990, evaluation plan). Applicants should also demonstrate that requested funds are one piece of a diversified budget — the foundation explicitly requires that funded programs not rely solely on its support, consistent with awarding modest, catalytic grants rather than full program budgets.

Health 1st Foundation's giving is modest and steady rather than growth-oriented. Across the ten fiscal years captured in its filings (2011-2015, 2019-2023), grants paid ranged from a low of $161,000 (2019) to a high of $222,000 (2011), averaging roughly $188,000/year, while total assets held stable in the $4.6M-$6.2M band (most recently $5,551,191 in FY2023; $5,922,221 in the foundation's latest public record). Total giving, which includes grant-related administrative costs beyond grants paid, ran higher — from $269,634 (2019) to $321,326 (2022). Web-sourced 990 data extends the trend: the foundation gave $178,356 across 20 grants in its most recently completed reported cycle, and an estimated $212,000 across roughly 20-31 grantees in 2025 — in line with the historical range, with no evidence of major expansion or contraction.

At the individual-grant level, the foundation's own published typical-grant-size figures show a median of $5,500 and an average of $9,611, within a $4,000-$24,000 range (based on 18 recent awards). Looking at the full 69-grant, $749,353 historical dataset (avg. $10,860/grant), funding splits roughly as follows: education-purpose grants — chiefly to Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and smaller scholarship funds like the Wesley S. Wilborn Memorial Scholarship — account for about 49% of total dollars (~$371,000). Direct health/medical service grants (Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia, Loving Arms Cancer Outreach, Adult Disability Medical Healthcare, Special Needs Cobb, Southwest Christian Care, and a long tail of $4,000-$7,000 clinic grants) make up about 35% (~$262,000). Senior-care, family-services, and disability-equipment grants round out the remainder (roughly 16%).

Geographically, the portfolio is almost entirely Georgia-based: 68 of 69 recorded grants (99%) went to Georgia organizations, with a single Tennessee exception (Meharry Medical College, a historically Black medical school). This confirms the foundation's stated metro-Atlanta/Georgia service-area restriction is applied strictly. Net investment income ($68,000-$473,000/year depending on market conditions) funds the giving rather than new contributions — the foundation reported $0 in contributions received every year in the dataset, meaning it operates entirely off its $5.9M endowment rather than ongoing fundraising.

Among Georgia health-focused private foundations, Health 1st Foundation sits at the small end by assets and giving, and is unusual for being entirely invitation-only rather than competitively open.

Health 1st Foundation's $5.9M endowment and roughly $180K-$300K in annual grants paid make it one of the smallest active health funders in this peer set — Healthcare Georgia Foundation and Sapelo Foundation each give 5-10x more per year, and even the similarly-named Georgia Health Foundation gives nearly 3x as much annually despite comparable name recognition confusion. What most distinguishes Health 1st is process, not scale: unlike every peer listed, which runs an open or LOI-based competitive process, Health 1st Foundation identifies and invites its own grantees, making unsolicited outreach far less likely to succeed here than at any of these peer funders.

Web research turned up no press releases or leadership-change news specific to Health 1st Foundation for 2025-2026 — this is a low-visibility, volunteer-run private foundation that does not issue public announcements. The most concrete recent signal is 990-derived: in the most recently completed filing year captured by third-party aggregators, the foundation awarded $178,356 across 20 grants, and preliminary 2025 data (via Instrumentl/Impala aggregation) shows roughly $212,000 distributed to an estimated 20-31 grantees — both consistent with the decade-long historical pattern of $161,000-$222,000 in annual grants paid, with no major scale-up or program pivot evident.

Leadership has been stable: Leroy A. Wilson has held the Chairman role, and the foundation's only compensated position at $36,000/year, across every filing year in the record, with Ed Wood as Vice Chairman and James Washington as Treasurer, both unpaid — indicating a long-tenured, unchanged governance structure rather than recent turnover. No new program areas, geographic expansions, or major gift announcements appeared in available web sources.

Given the foundation's historical pattern of multi-year renewal grants to the same roughly dozen core grantees (Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia, and others), the most reliable read on "recent activity" is continuity: steady, unpublicized annual awards concentrated among long-standing partners rather than a shifting or newsworthy grantmaking agenda. Prospective applicants should not expect real-time program updates on social media or in local press — outreach should go directly through the foundation's website or a personal introduction.

Because Health 1st Foundation explicitly does not accept unsolicited proposals, the single most important tip is: do not submit a cold application through the web form and expect a response — the foundation's own eligibility language states organizations are "identified and invited" by the Grant Review Committee. The actionable path is relationship-building: build visibility ahead of the funding season (the application window runs January 1 - July 31 each year) with the foundation's small leadership circle — Chairman Leroy A. Wilson, Vice Chairman Ed Wood, and Treasurer James Washington — or, more realistically, with a current or past grantee organization that can make an introduction. Given the strong representation of Atlanta HBCU-affiliated health and education institutions in the grantee list (Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Tennessee's Meharry Medical College), organizations with ties to these institutions or their networks may find a more receptive audience.

Once invited, prepare a complete document package up front: a signed cover letter on official organizational letterhead, IRS tax-exempt determination letter, a proposed grant budget, and financial statements/Form 990 — the foundation's application instructions list all four as required, and an incomplete packet is a likely rejection reason for a small volunteer review committee with limited bandwidth. Frame the request modestly: typical awards run $4,000-$24,000 (median $5,500), so proposals seeking full program budgets or six-figure asks are misaligned with this funder's scale — position the grant as one funding stream among several, since the foundation requires that funded programs not depend solely on its support.

Apply early in the January-July window rather than close to the July 31 close, since a volunteer board with no full-time program staff likely reviews in batches rather than continuously. If funded, take the reporting requirements seriously — 6-month and 12-month reports are required — because the data shows this foundation strongly favors renewing existing relationships (most grantees in the record received 2-4 awards over multiple years) over funding new organizations each cycle, so a well-executed first grant with clean reporting is the clearest path to multi-year support.