Grantmaking

Applying for a Grant

Program Areas

Funding long-term impact within a culture of transparency, equity, and learning.

The Pottstown Area Health & Wellness Foundation’s purpose is to help residents improve their health and well-being. Partnering with organizations in our service area, we provide funding of solutions aimed at long-term improvement in healthy behaviors along a continuum of change detailed in our Results Grantmaking Framework Guide.  This framework measures the impact of our grants on long-term, sustainable change. We invest in solutions aimed at long-term improvement in healthy behaviors. Specifically, the Foundation will invest in the following two core pillars and their defined program areas.

Please note: Organizations may only submit one application per grant cycle. Exceptions to this policy are organizations acting as a fiscal sponsor for an applicant or organizations who are lead applicant for a collaborative. For questions or clarification, please email grantsupport@pottstownfoundation.org. 

Developing Youth Potential

We believe that investing in children will lead to a better tomorrow for our community.  To that end, we seek to equip our community youth, especially those less served, with resources to be healthy, learning and thriving now and in the future. The Developing Youth Potential pillar has three program areas:  

Promoting Equitable Health & Wellness

Health equity is achieved when everyone has the opportunity to attain their full health potential and no one is prevented from achieving this potential because of socially determined position or circumstance. We strive for all community members to benefit from equitable access to spaces, services, programs, and resources that empower them to embrace a healthy lifestyle. The Promoting Equitable Health & Wellness pillar has three program areas:

Types of Support

The Foundation grants awards for three types of projects:  

  1. Programmatic Awards support existing programs that directly serve the community and its members. Each Foundation program area has a desired impact and target results. Proposed projects should align with target results.  
  2. Capacity Building Awards increase or improve the capacity of organizations to achieve measured results in their programming.  Capital infrastructure projects will fit best here. 
  3. System Reform Awards affect or inform change on a macro-level, including influencing policy, changing inequitable practices, or coordinating systems to eliminate silos, inequities, and inefficiencies.   

All proposals should align with our grantmaking framework and more competitive applications will have the following characteristics:  

  • Projects designed to produce and verify specific changes in the field, organizations, and participants that directly contribute to the specific focus areas results we seek; 
  • Projects that can be effectively implemented and ultimately continued without our funding;  
  • Projects that are replicable and can be shared with other organizations looking to produce similar results; and  
  • Projects that use evidence-based practices and strategies and offer clear evidence of results. 

Special emphasis is placed on proposals that support populations of greatest need, that demonstrate the need is supported by quantitative data, and where projects and initiatives are developed and implemented by and/or alongside those who will be impacted the most.  Collaborative efforts among two or more entities are highly encouraged.   

Application Resources

Remember to focus on impact or achievement—specifically the who, what and when—as you complete the application. The CIC Defining Results by Investment Type Tool is available to help you create concise results statements for projects and programs.

Equally important to defining results is the ability to track and verify progress towards results. The Critical Steps and Milestones Worksheet will aid in developing your work plan.

The Foundation understands that addressing critical community needs takes time and there are various stages of change that will be experienced along the way. As clients and communities pass through the stages, changes in behaviors, skillsets, and community assets occur. While not all projects or programs will be able to serve clients in every stage, the target results listed in our Results Grantmaking Framework Guide are intended to support progress toward sustainable improvement and make long-term outcomes more achievable. For programmatic grants, each program area is described and includes guidelines along a continuum—from Connect to Improve to Change—toward the Foundation’s desired impact.