We fund new or existing program and project requests that work to advance our mission as stated above through our strategic plan priorities. Our strategic plan was informed by the 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) conducted in collaboration with Aurora Medical Center - Bay Area and Marinette County Public Health and included return surveys from over 1000 residents.

We fund to address top health improvement priorities from the CHNA. Those are:

• Substance Misuse

• Mental Health

• Childhood Obesity reduction through healthy eating and active living

• Equitable Access to Care

We fund requests that address these through a prevention or promotion approach. We do not fund treatment or recovery. We also fund requests that address social determinants of health with the goal of improving these health behaviors in our community. We prefer systemic approaches to improving the community. We also prefer requests that seek to advance health equity. The CDC defines health equity as, “the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health.”

Our funding cannot be used to support requests that serve people outside of Marinette County, WI and/or Menominee County, MI. We will fund staffing components of the program/project request. We may fund marketing components of a program request, but only in conjunction with capacity-building support from Provident or another marketing professional.

We will consider grants to organizations that meet the following criteria:

• Service to residents of Marinette, WI and/or Menominee, MI counties

• Exempt from Federal Income taxes under section 501(c)3

• City, county, state, or federal governmental units

• School systems, public or private

Funding will not be considered for organizations that:

• Discriminate on the basis of race, sexual orientation, creed, age, or national origin

• Compete directly with Advocate Aurora Health

Provident will not entertain requests for:

• Advertising publications

• Annual appeals, fundraising campaigns, or membership drives

• Capital/Building Campaigns (brick & mortar)

• Equipment not considered program supplies (e.g. playground equipment, industrial refrigeration, etc.)

• Endowments or other discretionary funding pools

• Debt retirement

• Pass-through grant support through a third party

• Scholarships, fellowships, or direct financial assistance to individuals

We have a few different resources to support first-time (and even seasoned) grant applicants. Provident conducts a “How to Write a Convincing Grant Application” event annually. Check our website or Facebook page for any upcoming dates! We’ve also turned our presentation into a written guide available on our website under the “Grant Application” tab. We also encourage you to reach out to us! We can talk with you and help you get started.

We don’t require it, though we definitely encourage it. It’s literally our Grants Officer’s job to meet with you and help you have the best application possible. Please utilize her. A phone call or meeting can help you know how best to approach your grant application, keep you from wasting time on an application that doesn’t meet our requirements, and has a myriad of other benefits.

The Spring 2025 Grant Cycle opens January 10, 2025 and closes February 10, 2025 with decisions announced in April 2025.

During 2025, we will have a Spring grant cycle and then determine how the rest of the year will proceed.

Provident is committed to maintaining our initial community health improvement funding in perpetuity and will grant only investment earnings. Fund availability is subject to change over time.

Program/project grants are considered on a year-to-year basis. Multi-year program grant commitments will not be made during this grant cycle, but may be considered in the future.

Yes, organizations may apply for more than one grant in the grant cycle, and each grant will be considered on its own merit. In the Spring 2024 grant cycle, one organization applied for three grants, and all three grants were approved. Another nonprofit applied for three grant applications and two were approved while one was denied.

Potentially! Depending on the circumstances of your denial, we might recommend you do or don‘t reapply. Please reach out to us to discuss this if you‘re unsure! Madison can be reached at madarling@providenthealth.org.

Yes, but not with our grant application. Provident does consider support for individual fundraising events through modest sponsorships. An application for sponsorships is in Foundant, our grant software. Our decision to fund them will follow our general granting guidelines. This is a rolling application with no set dates.

Although there are many opportunities to improve local health through treatment and recovery, we have decided that the majority of our grant-making will go towards building the foundation for a healthy life. We will do this by primarily investing in evidence-based/informed programs that promote health and well-being with programs directly impacting Marinette & Menominee residents aged 0-18, as well as prevention strategies that empower them to make better health decisions.

Provident will not request measures of success in the grant application, rather, if the grant is awarded, we will work collaboratively with the organization to jointly set measurements and means to obtain those measurements.

Provident recognizes and focuses on a broad definition of health. We believe there is much more to health than health care. Health is influenced by many factors, including socioeconomic conditions, the built environment, education, food insecurity, income, family & social support, and individual behavior choices – factors that are known as the Social Determinants of Health.

Systemic Interventions - Provident aims to fund more systemically. We’ll be moving more upstream with our funding to create stronger institutional systems conducive to a healthier community rather than focusing solely on downstream individual interventions. For example, Provident recently funded a grant to expand a bus route that includes Marinette & Menominee Cities. This systemic intervention improved the systems that serve the community by increasing the public transportation infrastructure. A downstream intervention would have been funding individual bus passes or taxi vouchers.

Social Determinants of Health - Provident will be directing more funding focus to address the social determinants of health that impact the four focus areas we have. For example, a lack of social connectedness and belonging is shown to exacerbate substance abuse and mental health, so an initiative that improves that social connectedness, (e.g. the HYC Sober Parties that Provident has funded) results in less youth alcohol and drug consumption as well as improved mental health.

We will use the focus areas and approaches previously established by the Board as our key requirements but will allow consideration for those areas that meet our broader mission.

Grant applications will first be reviewed by Provident staff members to ensure they are complete and ready for Board review. Staff may call, email, or meet with applicants if there is anything confusing or absent from their application. Staff members will then send applications to the Board for their review.

All Board members will have the opportunity to be part of the evaluation process. Any decisions that are not clear-cut will be discussed and a recommendation will be made by the Executive Committee. All grant awards will be determined by the full Board.

There may be requests for additional or clarifying information before a decision is made. We may require greater proposal detail and/or personal interviews on any request.

We don’t have a set range to ask within, rather, we ask that you request the amount needed to execute what you’re promising to deliver in the grant application. If you have questions, please reach out!

We may decide to make some partial awards. During the Spring 2024 cycle, 17 of the 19 awarded grants were done at the fully requested level and 2 were awarded at less than the requested level.

Awards may be made in a single payment or installment payments depending on the size of the grant award and the needs of the program. We use ACH to make grant payments.

Yes, we do! It‘s an IRS-recommended best practice for Foundations like ours to implement a Grant Agreement. If your application is approved, we‘ll send you a Grant Agreement to sign in the Grant Software, Foundant. Grant payments will not be made until this is signed and returned to us. Modifications to the grant agreement may be requested.

Awardees will sign a Grant Agreement ahead of the first check and will make at least one progress report during the life of the grant. Reporting may be done via meeting or phone call. Larger grants may require more reporting.

While we will appreciate any public acknowledgment of our collaboration with you, it is not a requirement to receive the funding. Provident will be managing the public release of information about the grants. If you need assistance with graphics or approved verbiage, please see our Style Guide.

Yes, please! We encourage applicants or those interested in applying to reach out to us with any questions, comments, or concerns. We would be happy to meet with you regarding your application or any funding ideas you might have; to do so, email Madison Darling at madarling@providenthealth.org.

Our application will be available online at – https://www.grantinterface.com/Home/Logon?urlkey=providenthealth