Finding Local and Regional Grants

This document is based on a webinar conducted in-house by the Texas A&M University Health Science Center. It serves to provide information on potentially unexplored resources for hospitals in search of grants.

How to Find Funding: “Where Do I Start?”

Where you go to find grants depends on the type of project you are looking to fund, such as research, programmatic, planning, or implementation. There are many types of funders to look for when searching for grants as well: federal, state, regional, community, foundations, and corporate/philanthropic.

Subscribing to key listservs/notices for grant updates and keeping track of grants released by NRHA, NOSORH, and AHA are good ways to begin your search for local and national grants. For more information on finding national grants, see Finding Grants and Other Opportunities.  Historically, national grants have higher numbers of applicants resulting in lower numbers of grant winners. State, local, and community grants are often overlooked even with their potential to fund projects within hospitals.

State Funding

  • State offices such as the Department of State Health Services and the State Health and Human Services offer funding alerts through email services via subscriptions. These are state-specific.
  • There is also a Rural Health Information Hub (RHI Hub) that provides support with searching for grants by topic, region, sponsor, funding type, and state.
  • The Grantsmanship Center provides training, publications, technical assistance, and consulting to nonprofits for foundation funding, government funding, and corporate funding. It does not provide grants and awards.

Local Funding

  • Private Funding: Philanthropy News has a RFPs page where you can look for U.S.-based grant-making organizations and nonprofits based on topics of Health, Disabilities, COVID-19, Human Services, Medical Research, and Mental Health.
  • Private Funding: The Foundation Directory Online requires a subscription but gives an array of resources for applying for grants from the 90% of foundations in the United States that do not have websites.
  • Local: Search for grants through industries/businesses in your area (chains), philanthropic organizations, community grants (United Way), and collaboration with eligible entities. For example, Lions Club International has given grants for hospitals to obtain new equipment.
  • Professional Organizations: Local chapters of professional organizations that your hospital belongs to (or should join) might have unadvertised grant money available. This is typically the case in small towns where the capability to make a website and properly advertise might not be possible or easily done.