Healthcomp Foundation

HealthComp Foundation is a small, place-based Cleveland funder (EIN 47-5518569, $8.16M in assets as of FY2024) that spun out of The Center for Health Affairs' for-profit affiliate in 2016 and now operates as WellLink's philanthropic arm. Its giving is deliberately narrow: Cuyahoga County-based nonprofits serving Cuyahoga County residents, with an explicit preference for grassroots, community-based, and BIPOC-led organizations over large institutions. Large or citywide organizations can still qualify, but only by demonstrating genuine partnership with grassroots groups embedded in the affected community — a structural test, not a formality. The foundation runs a hybrid model: a small proactive track (staff/board-initiated grants to strategic partners, e.g., the $25,000 2025 award to Center for Community Solutions for sector-wide policy advocacy) alongside a larger responsive track open to competitive applications (17 grants totaling $450,000 in 2025). First-time applicants should recognize this is a relationship-aware funder with a compact, community-rooted board — Chair Kimalon Dixon (Jump Start Inc.), Secretary Max Rodas (Nueva Luz Urban Resource Center, itself a past grantee), and directors drawn from MetroHealth, the Mandel Foundation, and grassroots Cleveland organizations. That overlap signals the board evaluates applications with direct, on-the-ground knowledge of Cleveland's nonprofit landscape, not at arm's length. There is no formal LOI-to-full-proposal ladder; the application is submitted directly through the online portal within one of two annual windows, reviewed by staff and then the full board, with funding decisions communicated within two weeks of the board meeting. Grantee data confirms the foundation also maintains a small number of large, recurring institutional relationships — Cuyahoga County Board of Health received three grants totaling $456,077 and The Cleveland Foundation received $210,000 — suggesting some proactive awards function as sustained infrastructure partnerships rather than one-off competitive grants. First-time responsive applicants should expect single-year awards in the $20,000-$50,000 range and should not assume renewal; the foundation funds discrete projects and capacity-building, not recurring general operating support at scale.

Total giving has ranged from $637,493 (FY2019) to a peak of $809,124 (FY2021), settling to $742,602 in FY2023 and an estimated $830,286 in total FY2024 revenue (total_giving not yet reported for FY2024). Grants paid have tracked closely: $441,354 (2019), $553,363 (2020), $663,000 (2021), $533,857 (2022), and $579,942 (2023) — a pattern of modest year-over-year variance rather than steady growth, consistent with a foundation funding off net investment income ($1.45M in 2023, $1.02M in 2021) rather than fresh contributions (contributions received: $0 in every reported year since 2019). Total assets peaked at $10.68M in FY2021 and have declined to $8.16M in FY2024, tracking broader market conditions since the foundation holds no active fundraising arm. Per the foundation's own reporting, typical grant size ranges from $25,000 to $170,000 across 18 tracked awards, with a median of $25,000 and an average of $36,833 — though the $170,000 maximum is an outlier; the 2025 grant slate shows a tighter working range of $20,000-$45,000, with most responsive awards clustering at $20,000-$25,000. The platform's grantee database shows $1,621,077 distributed across 39 tracked grants (avg. $41,566), entirely within Ohio, but this includes multi-year cumulative totals to repeat institutional partners — Cuyahoga County Board of Health ($456,077 across 3 grants) and The Cleveland Foundation ($210,000) alone account for over 40% of tracked dollars, meaning a first-time responsive applicant should benchmark against the $20,000-$45,000 range seen in 2025, not the higher average skewed by these anchor relationships. Geographically and programmatically, funding is 100% concentrated in Cuyahoga County/Northeast Ohio with a mix of civic participation (Cleveland VOTES, Greater Cleveland Congregations), criminal-justice reform (Ohio Innocence Project at $45,000, Writers In Residence), immigrant/refugee support (Building Hope in the City, Re:Source Cleveland, Smart Development), and peer-support/community health worker models (LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland, Nueva Luz Urban Resource Center).

All five peer foundations sit within a tight $8.0M-$8.4M asset band, making HealthComp's roughly $8.16M asset base squarely median for this peer set — none of the peers have public websites in the platform's records, so their giving levels and application processes could not be independently verified in this research pass. What distinguishes HealthComp within this group is transparency: it is the only foundation in this set publishing detailed, dated, itemized grant lists (recipient, amount, purpose) by year on a public website, along with published eligibility criteria, deadlines, and exclusions — a meaningfully lower research burden for applicants than is typical among similarly-sized health foundations, where funding priorities often must be inferred from Form 990 filings alone.

The most current, verifiable activity is the foundation's 2025 grant slate, published on its own grants archive: a $25,000 proactive grant to Center for Community Solutions for nonprofit-sector policy advocacy, plus 17 responsive grants totaling $450,000 spanning peer navigation for unhoused youth (A Place 4 Me, $30,000), criminal justice reform (Ohio Innocence Project, $45,000), civic engagement (Cleveland VOTES, $20,000; Greater Cleveland Congregations, $20,000), immigrant/refugee services (Building Hope in the City, Re:Source Cleveland, Smart Development, each ~$20,000-$25,000), and fatherhood/reentry programming (University Settlement, Writers In Residence). No dated leadership changes, new program launches, or press announcements were found for 2025 or 2026 beyond this grants listing — the foundation's dedicated news category page has no entries newer than a 2021 grantmaking-priorities announcement and a 2020 COVID-19 operational statement, suggesting the foundation communicates primarily through its grants archive rather than press releases. The current board, per the About page, is chaired by Kimalon Dixon (Jump Start, Inc.) with Dixon Morgan as Treasurer and Max Rodas as Secretary; board composition (drawing from MetroHealth, the Mandel Foundation, and grassroots Cleveland organizations like Nueva Luz Urban Resource Center) has not visibly changed in recent public materials. Applicants should treat the 2025 grants page as the best available proxy for current funding intent, since it is more recently updated than the foundation's news section.

Apply within the correct window: the Spring cycle opens February 1 with an application deadline of March 1 (11:59 p.m.) and board decisions in May; the Fall cycle opens August 1 with a September 1 (11:59 p.m.) deadline and board decisions in November. Missing these windows means waiting a full six months, since the foundation does not appear to accept rolling or off-cycle applications. Only tax-exempt nonprofits based in and serving Cuyahoga County residents are eligible — organizations outside this footprint should not apply regardless of mission fit. Frame the proposal explicitly as 'upstream' (community/systems-level change) or 'midstream' (individual/family peer-support, community health worker models) work; proposals that read as 'downstream' direct clinical or billable behavioral health service delivery, basic-needs provision (food/housing/transportation), job training, or education/literacy programming will be screened out regardless of quality, per the foundation's own stated exclusions. Use language that mirrors the foundation's own framing — 'social connection,' 'belonging,' 'social determinants of health,' 'peer support,' 'lived experience' — since these appear repeatedly across both its mission statement and funded-project descriptions. A common mistake for first-time applicants is treating this as a general health-services funder; the 2025 award list (civic participation, criminal justice reform, immigrant navigation, fatherhood programming) shows the foundation funds far more on the social-determinants and systems-advocacy side than clinical health despite its NTEE health classification. Only one application per organization per cycle is permitted, so internally coordinate before submitting if multiple departments or programs might otherwise compete for the same slot. Include a cover letter co-signed by both the Executive Director and Board Chair — this dual-signature requirement is explicitly stated and easy to overlook. Attach the organization's most current audited financials or IRS Form 990; applications without this are incomplete. Because board members are themselves drawn from Cleveland's nonprofit and grassroots community (e.g., Secretary Max Rodas leads a past grantee organization), warm introductions and demonstrated on-the-ground community credibility likely carry real weight — cold applications from organizations with no visible Cuyahoga County presence are a mismatch for this funder's stated grassroots priority.