New York State Health Foundation

The New York Health Foundation (NYHealth) is a private, statewide grantmaker with $326 million in assets and approximately $15 million in annual giving, operating as a classic strategic philanthropy — concentrated grant dollars, defined priorities, and a clear theory of change rooted in policy and systems reform. This is not a broad-based community foundation. Applications succeeding here are tightly aligned with one of three core lanes: Primary Care, Healthy Food/Healthy Lives, or Veterans' Health. Work falling outside those lanes competes through the Special Projects Fund's annual open call.

NYHealth strongly favors New York-based organizations: 84% of tracked grants by count (453 of 538) have gone to NY-registered grantees. The remaining 16% consists largely of national policy and research organizations in Washington DC (22 grants) and Massachusetts (9 grants) that bring specialized policy capacity bearing on New York. If your organization lacks a meaningful New York presence or program footprint, your chances diminish sharply.

The typical relationship arc follows a three-stage pattern visible in the grantee data. Anchor grantees like Community Service Society of New York (10 grants, $983,000 cumulative), NYC Health and Hospitals (9 grants, $891,859), and NYU's evaluation team (5 grants, $588,062) built their relationships through demonstrated results on early projects that evolved into multi-phase partnerships — 'Phase 2' and 'Phase 3' labels appear throughout the top-50 grantee list. First-time applicants should treat their initial grant as a relationship investment, not a standalone project.

For organizations new to NYHealth, the LOI stage is the primary filter. The foundation's program staff genuinely engage with prospective grantees before formal submission — emailing specialprojectsfund@nyhealthfoundation.org with a two-paragraph project summary is a legitimate and encouraged pre-LOI step. Leadership is stable and analytically driven: CEO David Sandman has led the foundation across all the fiscal years in the record (2011–2023) and maintains a public presence through policy testimony and published commentary, which signals the ideological direction of the foundation's grantmaking.

NYHealth's financial base is stable and well-capitalized, with total assets ranging from $273 million (2011) to a peak of $362 million (2021) before settling at $326 million in 2023 — market-driven fluctuations in a primarily investment-income-funded foundation. Annual giving has tracked consistently between $13.9 million and $18.5 million, with the COVID-19 years (2020–2021) representing a temporary surge: $17.1 million in 2020 and $18.5 million in 2021. The post-COVID normalization brings giving back to the $15–16 million band for 2022–2023.

From 538 tracked grants totaling $33.4 million across the historical record: median grant size is $42,813, average is $56,186 (the gap reflects a right-skewed distribution pulled by a small number of larger multi-year awards). The foundation's own data reports a median of $42,813 from 208 grant records, with a minimum of $500 (conference scholarships) and a maximum of $250,000. The Special Projects Fund's published cap is $200,000 per award, with approximately 8–12 organizations funded per annual cycle.

By program area, the grantee portfolio breaks down approximately as follows: consumer health advocacy and transparency (~18% of total dollars, anchored by Community Service Society and Catalyst for Payment Reform); food security and nutrition (~15%, driven by Field & Fork Network, Community Food Advocates, and the Double Up Food Bucks program); COVID-19 emergency response and recovery (~12%, concentrated in 2020–2021); primary care and telehealth access (~11%, Primary Care Development Corporation and NYC H+H); mental health and behavioral health (~8%, Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene); and veterans' health (~9%, Stop Soldier Suicide and Dwyer Coalition). Geographic diversity within New York is modest — New York City-based organizations dominate, with upstate presence largely limited to Niagara Falls, Clinton County, and Western/Central NY clusters.

Admin overhead is capped hard at 15% for Special Projects Fund grants. Multi-year grants run 12–36 months per phase, and the top 10 cumulative recipients each received an average of $514,570 across multiple grants — signaling that demonstrated performance unlocks deepening investment.

The following table positions NYHealth against comparable health-focused private foundations relevant to New York grant seekers:

NYHealth occupies a distinctive niche: it is large enough to fund meaningful policy-change initiatives ($200K grants, multi-phase partnerships) but disciplined enough to maintain a tight New York-only geographic scope and three defined programmatic lanes. Mother Cabrini Health Foundation is a larger competitor for New York health equity dollars but focuses more on direct service and Catholic health institutions. The Health Foundation for Western and Central New York serves a complementary geography (Upstate), making it a useful co-funder rather than a competitor for most NYC-based organizations. The Commonwealth Fund overlaps primarily on health policy research and is national in scope. For organizations seeking statewide New York health systems change funding, NYHealth is the most directly aligned funder at this asset level.

The foundation has been unusually active in public advocacy during 2025–2026, reflecting a posture shift toward more visible policy engagement. In February 2026, CEO David Sandman submitted formal testimony to the New York State Joint Legislative Public Hearing on the 2026 Executive Budget focused on higher education and health workforce. That same month, NYHealth co-released a data brief with the Primary Care Development Corporation on the primary care workforce crisis — framing primary care investment as a cost-reduction strategy for the state.

In late 2025, the foundation took a responsive emergency action: committing $1 million in immediate cash grants to address food insecurity across New York, consistent with its Healthy Food, Healthy Lives priority. This was accompanied by public statements from Sandman emphasizing data infrastructure for guiding emergency investments. In December 2025, Sandman published a 'Wish List for 2026' laying out the foundation's aspirations for primary care reform, food equity, and veteran mental health — a useful indicator of what the foundation's program staff will be receptive to in the coming grant cycle.

On the policy win side, 2025 saw New York become the 9th U.S. state to fully fund universal free school meals, covering 2.7 million students — a campaign NYHealth supported through multiple grantees over several years. The full New York State Senate also passed the Primary Care Investment Act, a bill the foundation has championed through policy research grants and advocacy support. These wins are likely to intensify the foundation's focus on implementation and next-phase policy in the 2026 grant cycle.

Know which door to knock on before approaching. NYHealth runs two structurally different funding tracks. The three priority areas — Primary Care, Healthy Food/Healthy Lives, and Veterans' Health — use a relationship-driven intake model where program officers engage prospective grantees directly, without a fixed open call. The Special Projects Fund is the formal annual open call for everything else. Applying to the Special Projects Fund with a primary care proposal, or approaching a program officer with a Special Projects Fund project, signals you haven't done your homework.

Lead with policy and systems-change potential. The foundation's stated criterion for competitiveness is explicit: 'strong potential for replication, scaling, and/or implications for statewide policy and systems change.' Pure direct service projects rarely win. Frame your intervention as a proof-of-concept for statewide adoption, a model for regulatory change, or a pilot generating evidence for legislative action. Look at top grantees — Code for America (improving automated eligibility systems), Catalyst for Payment Reform (holding health systems accountable), Stop Soldier Suicide (disrupting military suicide statewide) — all have clear systems-level ambitions.

Sustainability is the most common rejection reason. The foundation has explicitly documented this: proposals are turned down when 'no apparent means exist to continue the project after grant funding ends.' Saying you'll seek other grants is insufficient. Instead: identify a government agency that might adopt the program, map earned revenue potential, or explain the policy change that would institutionalize your intervention.

Use racial equity language precisely. NYHealth's mission explicitly targets 'people of color and others who have been historically marginalized.' Applications should use this framing specifically — with demographic data on who is underserved, how your intervention reaches them differently, and what equity outcomes you'll measure. Vague commitments to 'diversity' score poorly.

Contact Sophia Silao at (212) 584-7671 or Silao@nyhealthfoundation.org for Special Projects Fund programmatic questions before submitting. For primary care, food, or veterans' health inquiries, navigate to the program page and contact the relevant program officer directly. These conversations are expected and valued — staff who know your project before the LOI deadline are better positioned to advocate for it internally.

Time your outreach strategically. The Special Projects Fund cycle runs November LOI → January invitation → February full proposal → June decisions. Budget proposals take 4–6 weeks to develop well. Begin drafting in September for a November LOI. If your evaluation plan requires a third-party evaluator, identify them before LOI submission — reviewers notice when evaluation sections are vague.