CONGRATULATIONS to the grant recipients highlighted below. For more information, visit
https://www.telligenci.org/recent-grantees.

ILLINOIS

Legal Council for Health Justice
‍$150,000 | Chicago, IL
Expand capacity to provide legal services focusing on pediatric behavioral health to patients and families in under-resourced communities by hiring a fulltime Spanish-speaking attorney through Medical Legal Partnerships with Mt. Sinai Hospital and Comer Children’s Hospital.

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Kreider Services Inc.
‍$149,969 | Dixon, IL
Expand capacity to offer Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) evaluation by training providers to screen for prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE), referring children for evaluation, and implementing the only evidence-based treatment for parenting skill development when PAE is involved.

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Mercer Co. Health Dept.
‍$150,000 | Aledo, IL
Hire and place Community Health Workers (CHWs) in public health, healthcare and community-based organizations to address health-related social needs (HRSN) system-wide, working through Together in Care: No Barriers, No Delays initiative, which strives to ensure vulnerable populations have equitable access to essential services and care.

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Shawnee Health Service & Development Corp.
‍$150,000 | Carterville, IL
Hire a case manager/health educator to connect OBGYN patients to prenatal care and resources, including insurance, nutrition benefits and transportation, while also providing health education as needed.

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Options for Youth
‍$150,000 | Chicago, IL
Expand the Subsequent Pregnancy Program, which empowers teen mothers to delay a second pregnancy, graduate from high school and create brighter futures by pairing teen mothers with dedicated home visitors, to communities on Chicago’s South Side.

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Health Medicine Policy Research Group
‍$150,000 | Chicago, IL
Partner with Community Organizing and Family Issues to train parent leaders as trusted health messengers — equipping them with information on ACEs, structural determinants of health and protective factors, while teaching them to lead others through education and advocacy efforts.
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One Hope United
‍$150,000 | Chicago, IL
Partner with Develop Healthy Families Illinois to expand doula services and provide culturally responsive care, guidance and parenting support — connecting pregnant people and parents of young children with evidence-based programs that improve health and education outcomes.

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Family Health Foundation of Illinois, Inc.
‍$35,000 | Bolingbrook, IL
Improve pregnancy and prenatal care by increasing education and awareness of the maternal RSV vaccine to prevent RSV in infants. Offer immunization resources and care coordination, focusing on underserved rural and urban areas with limited access to prenatal care.

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Little Heroes Leaguez
‍$150,000 | Chicago, IL
Expand the program, which provides free, personalized care coordination, support and skill-building training to help medically complex babies and their families transition home, to serve more families at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

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"This generous support allows us to expand life changing care coordination services for medically complex children at Lurie Children’s —helping families navigate care, reduce hospitalizations and improve long-term outcomes," said Brenden Etue, Executive Director, Little Heroes League. "We’re deeply grateful for this investment in helping more kids get home sooner and stay home longer."

OKLAHOMA

Resonance Center for Women, Inc.
$150,000 | Tulsa, OK
Expand services to Oklahoma women with substance use disorders by providing a trauma-informed alternative to incarceration. Provide therapy, case management and transitional housing to support longterm recovery, family stability and improved maternal and child health.
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Parent Promise
$148,150 | Oklahoma City, OK
Offer greatly needed doula services to women throughout the perinatal period in central Oklahoma’s maternal health deserts. The project will strive to promote safe pregnancies and healthy deliveries while also improving maternal mortality rates.
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Peaceful Family Oklahoma
$150,000 | Edmond, OK
Expand trauma-informed programs for children impacted by substance use disorders (SUDs) by offering camps, school programs and support through the family justice center and Coordinated Community Response Team, while training caregivers and educators to support PACEs and counteract ACEs.

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The Common Good
$131,505 | Tulsa, OK
Connect families to educational resources, workshops and support services through the Resilient Families Project, which offers therapy, trauma-informed social emotional learning, school-based ACEs screenings, parent workshops and youth leadership development to build a community-driven support network.
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Children’s Health Foundation
$150,000 | Oklahoma City, OK
Support the Infant Early Childhood Mental Health program, which provides specialized treatment to children recovering from ACEs and their families, in developing a medical-legal partnership with Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma to hire a part-time attorney who will address civil legal barriers hindering healing from ACEs.
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Crossover Health Services
$149,994 | Tulsa, OK
Expand capacity to provide high quality maternal care, prenatal care and intensive case management to underserved families in North Tulsa through patient centered, culturally responsive care and community partnerships — striving to improve maternal care and reduce preterm births.

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Tulsa Area United Way
$150,000 | Tulsa, OK
Launch United for ALICE in Oklahoma to measure financial hardship across the state, highlighting the struggles of ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) families to drive awareness and support development of programs and policies that will improve access to essential resources. Additional details about the project and launch forthcoming in Fall 2025.

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Imani’s Village
$150,000 | Oklahoma City, OK
Offer comprehensive doula services, childbirth education and breastfeeding support to Oklahoma families through the Empowerment Through Doula Care initiative, which trains community-based doulas to enhance infant and maternal health, with an emphasis in the Black community.

Grant Deadline Coming Soon

COLORADO & IOWA PROPOSALS DUE OCTOBER 15

The second Strengthening Families and Communities (SFC) grant application deadline of 2025 will be here soon! Nonprofit organizations working on Colorado-based or Iowa-based project applications, please submit your proposal by the end of day on October 15. To learn more about this funding and how it might align with your social drivers of health work, visit at www.telligenci.org

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20 CAPACITY BUILDING GRANTS AWARDED

NEW PROGRAM SEEKS TO ADVANCE ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT

In January, Telligen Community Initiative (TCI) introduced a new grant making program to advance organizational capacity. Capacity-building proposals are requests for resources to help a nonprofit better fulfill its mission. Goals are often to adjust the organization’s efficiency, size or effectiveness. Methods may vary, but good nonprofits seek to develop and sustain a quality workforce, stable finances, effective oversight, and are representative of the population they are serving.

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TCI is interested in providing resources that support this end, which is very different from our traditional support of community-based projects and program implementation. TCI would like to support ways to make your nonprofit organization more prepared and emboldened to implement its mission. This funding opportunity is designed to change things about the inner workings of your organization – including the individuals sitting at your governance table, the way you utilize data for strategy and planning, and ways to make more equitable approaches to your default way of achieving impact. For this first year, TCI invited organizations who were finalists in our 2024 Strengthening Families and
Communities funding opportunity but were not selected for funding to apply.

Twenty capacity building grants ($25,000 maximum/grant) totaling $497,633 were awarded this year. CONGRATULATIONS to all the capacity building grantees, including the following:

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COLORADO

Better Tomorrow
$24,733 | Steamboat Springs, CO | Evaluation planning & capturing data impacts of work
Assess the impact of the Better Tomorrow model to enhance organizational effectiveness and significantly improve outcomes for vulnerable individuals in our rural community.
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Center for African American Health
$25,000 | Denver, CO | Evaluation planning & capturing data impacts of work  
Strengthen capacity to use data for program improvement and outcome measurement by equipping staff with coaching, tools and support to embed continuous learning and evidence-based decision-making.
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Colorado Perinatal Care Quality Collaborative
$25,000 | Denver, CO | Organizational data usage – dashboards & scorecards
Enhance data infrastructure by creating dynamic, public-facing scorecards, dashboards and reports to improve tracking of perinatal health outcomes and make critical data more accessible to hospitals, policymakers, partners and birthing people across Colorado.
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Foster Source
$25,000 | Thornton, CO | Organizational data usage – dashboards & scorecards  
Strengthen infrastructure to better support youth in the child welfare system by funding a Salesforce administrator and website redesign — ensuring more effective support for at-risk children by streamlining resources, improving communication and expanding access to critical services.
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Reach Out and Read Colorado
$25,000 | Denver, CO | Organizational data usage – dashboards & scorecards  
Develop a comprehensive data dashboard to enhance efficiency, decision-making and sustainability by streamlining reporting, automating data collection and improving program tracking, fundraising and collaboration — ultimately expanding capacity to serve more children and maximize impact.

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United Way of Southwest Colorado
$25,000 | Durango, CO | Voice of lived experiences of program beneficiaries
Increase the positive impact of the Team Up initiative by enhancing participating children and families’ authentic engagement with community members with lived experience and building advocacy for effective strategies and policies across all levels.
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Youth Healthcare Alliance
$25,000 | Denver, CO | Fund development planning & staffing
Secure a revenue strategy aligned with our new strategic plan by strengthening staff grant-seeking and grant-writing skills, providing feedback on past grant proposals, offering guidance based on the new plan, and identifying potential new funding opportunities.

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IOWA

Ellipsis
$25,000 | Des Moines, IA | Succession planning
Strengthen organizational stability and sustainability during a CEO transition through targeted consulting focused on team development, operational strategy, and succession planning informed by organizational history as well as future needs.
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EveryStep
$24,200 | Des Moines, IA | Staffing burnout avoidance – executive coaching or sabbaticals
Provide leadership training for the organization’s management team to prevent non-profit burnout and build sector resiliency through education, coaching and strategies that increase productivity, reduce turnover, support change management, strengthen culture and develop future leaders.
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Iowa ACEs 360
$25,000 | Des Moines, IA | Organizational data usage – dashboards & scorecards
Advance the organization's capacity for internal and external data collection and visualization.

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ILLINOIS

Become Tomorrow
$25,000 | Chicago, IL | Voice of lived experiences of program beneficiaries
Support a Community Outreach and Engagement contractor to strengthen trust, remove barriers and boost participation in existing community building and mother mentorship programs within Chicago’s underserved Auburn Gresham neighborhood, ensuring community-led impact.
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Center for Speech and Language Disorders dba
CHAT | $25,000 | Lombard, IL | Succession planning
Enhance staff leadership development and secure external support to strengthen cash flow capacity, addressing federal funding uncertainties and ensuring a sustainable, steady-state future.
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Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center
$25,000 | Chicago, IL | Diversify staffing
Implement a leadership and DEIAB-focused capacity-building initiative — including executive coaching and DEI roundtables — to enhance employee retention, reduce conflict and improve services for diverse children and families served by the organization.
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FamilyCore
$25,000 | Peoria, IL | Fund development planning & staffing
Expand the organization’s fundraising capacity by developing planned giving and major gift strategies and hiring staff to implement these new initiatives.
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Mobile Care Chicago
$24,200 | Chicago, IL | Voice of lived experiences of program beneficiaries
Enhance parent advisory board with stipends and staff support, improve client insights through enhanced data collection, and increase user friendliness with automated appointment reminders and digital consent for new patients — all to improve patient experience and voice.
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NAMI DuPage
$25,000 | Wheaton, IL | Fund development planning & staffing  
Engage current donors and cultivate new ones to build financial strength and sustainable funding for growing mental health and substance use disorder services by leveraging consultants to expand donor development, establish a legacy program and diversify revenue sources.
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Promise Healthcare
$25,000 | Champaign, IL | Evaluation planning & capturing data impacts of work  
Hire a systems analyst to collaborate with IT and leadership teams to assess electronic health record/practice management hosting options and implement two key workflow improvements.

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OKLAHOMA

Honestly OKC
$25,000 | Oklahoma City | Organizational data usage – dashboards & scorecards  
Strengthen digital infrastructure by updating website to highlight the organization’s new strategic plan and developing an integrated communication and partner relationship management system linked to fundraising CRM for improved engagement and data-driven decisionmaking.
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Oklahoma State University Center for Health
Sciences | $25,000 | Tulsa | Staffing burnout avoidance – executive coaching or sabbaticals
Foster a sustainable, supportive work environment that builds a culture of connection and growth, prioritizing morale, belonging, engagement and retention of faculty, staff and residents. Combat burnout and empower its team to best serve Oklahomans through targeted wellness initiatives and wellness champions.
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Potts Family Foundation
$24,500 | Oklahoma City | Organizational strategic planning  
Empower a network of sustainable nonprofits statewide to impact the quality of life for young children by supporting development of nonprofit leaders and impacting systemic change through asset-based community development.

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LESSONS LEARNED...SO FAR

CAPACITY BUILDING INVESTMENTS

Written by Matt McGarvey, TCI Executive Director‍

As discussed earlier, Telligen Community Initiative introduced a new type of capacity building funding in 2025 to test how this type of support can fit into our funding mix. Historically, much of our work and funding support has been in the space of direct project implementation and support. Though that mode of funding is potentially more important than ever, we have recently been receiving an increasing number of requests that could more accurately be described as seeking capacity building types of support.

The Council of Nonprofits defines capacity-building grants as “an investment in the effectiveness and future sustainability of a nonprofit.” GrantCraft notes that “capacity building is fundamentally about improving effectiveness, often at the organizational level.” Our experience with this new funding stream is very much aligned with these definitions.

The greatest number of both applicants and awarded support for TCI in this initial applicant pool has been best characterized around organizational data usage, particularly in storytelling via visual depictions of impact. Many of these requests took the form of deliberate work and actions around scorecards and dashboards to better tell the story of nonprofit organizational impact. Other areas that received the greatest interest in this type of support included:

• Fund development planning and staffing.
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• Capturing the voice of lived experience of program beneficiaries.
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• Evaluation planning.
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• Talent retention and succession planning.

Though we received little response in these areas from our applicant pool in our initial funding foray into capacity building support in 2025, TCI is also interested in support to help nonprofits diversity and build governance pipelines; explore alternative business models and earned income approaches (such as social enterprises); and navigate cross-nonprofit collaboration and strategic alliances. We believe each of these types of explorations and nonprofit journeys could prove impactful in a capacity building mode of support.

There is great potential for efficiency and strategic value in the world of cross-nonprofit staffing, including serving as precursors for merging organizations or the way for collaborative nonprofits to create efficiencies that, as a field, we have not fully considered. This could include nonprofits collaborating to fulfill shared communication, shared space, coordinated/ joint programming or professional accounting/finance partnerships in which a single staff person assists with the financial controls of multiple nonprofits, e.g., shared CFO. This might also include technology guidance across organizational settings via a shared CIO. This potential funding in shared programming or approaches might yield administrative cost sharing or efficiencies through shared services across multiple nonprofits. TCI sees this as an efficiency play that could benefit nonprofits in the challenges many face today and into our immediate future.

Though the majority of the 20 awardees selected this year are early in their capacity building scopes of work with these grants, TCI is thrilled  with the manner in which the invitational funding pool as a whole embraced this support opportunity. TCI is actively planning how to best incorporate this type of funding in our nonprofit organizational effectiveness funding in an ongoing way in 2026. Watch for more updates later this year. If you have thoughts on this type of support, please contact TCI staff directly to discuss.

NAVIGATING THE FUTURE

IN THE NONPROFIT HEALTH SECTOR

Written by Matt McGarvey, TCI Executive Director

The nonprofit health sector is being bombarded with change. However, I no longer say “unprecedented,” because much of the sector is still in recovery from the global pandemic. Our most recent funding cycle had an applicant pool with an average organizational budget of approximately $22 million. Very few nonprofits we have the good fortune of working with have fully (or even partially) replenished their reserves and contingency budgets that were tapped during COVID. The sector has always been characterized as resilient. However, the current situation requires many nonprofits to move beyond taking efficiency measures or holding positions open after staff departures or retirements. Core budgets and functions are being challenged — which may impair the ability of many nonprofit partners to fully advance their missions.

After giving this a great deal of thought over time, I’d like to share some reflections and possible approaches that may help us thoughtfully and constructively navigate the challenges we're currently facing, together.

• Lean into professional development field advancing professional organizations.
  Work with your field-specific professional development associations during challenging times. They are likely monitoring legislative/advocacy updates in a way that might be more comprehensive, more effective or timelier than your organization can do on its own. These entities might also be able to give voice to a piece of your work and field that you are not able to amplify as effectively on your own. Engage with these groups who may be able to help.

• Let funders know if funding changes happen that impact your ability to deliver your work. If a major piece of your funding changes significantly, it may be an ideal time for core support or to transition project-specific funding support to general operational support. Ask funders to consider extending current grants to multi-year support, which will help you plan for the longer term.

• Advocate for funders to accept common grant applications or develop common reporting requirements. Ask funders to consider accepting common grant applications or proposals for similar work that you have submitted to other funding sources. What any individual (or group) of funders might not be able to replace in funding lapses you might be faced with covering; we can be better partners by trying to give you the opportunity cost of development time back through more innovative approaches. Place-based or issue-specific funders might also be in a prime position to begin developing common reporting requirements that multiple funding sources could accept and use to aggregate findings
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Finally, I encourage you to communicate freely and openly. I recognize that it can be intimidating to ask a funding source to consider these types of changes, but I think you'd be surprised that all sides of any funding relationship might be considering how to do their current work differently to be a better collaborator and partner.
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TCI is currently piloting several different reporting approaches with some of our active grantees, including interviews in lieu of written reporting, as well as group interviews/interactions with multiple grantees doing similarly focused work. These approaches may prove to be more efficient for all involved and present better ways to interact and learn from one another.
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This is a challenging time in health philanthropy. Though things may change and continue to evolve, all involved with the work of this sector must embrace change and adapt to the evolving landscape in the best way possible. Telligen Community Initiative is striving to be the best collaborative partner we can be in all facets of our work, including funding, voice, efficiency, time management and adaptation. We look forward to continuing to partner with you as we navigate the future of sustainable health philanthropy together.