Walter D. Woods, CEO of the Humana Foundation, which will award up to $500,000 to a Broward organization which helps people improve their health and well-being.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LINKEDIN AND STOCK PHOTO

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Broward County is one of eight communities across the nation where three years ago, Humana Inc., began working to “improve the health of the communities we serve 20 percent by 2020 because we make it easy for people to achieve their best health.”

The health company’s philanthropic arm, The Humana Foundation, has a “Bold Goal,” that, through its Strategic Community Investments work, will invest $6.5 million in nonprofit organizations operating in eight communities, including Humana’s headquarters hometown of Louisville, Ky., plus Broward County; San Antonio; New Orleans, Baton Rouge, La.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Tampa Bay and Jacksonville. Each investment will be no smaller than $500,000.

“Through our new Strategic Community Investments work, the Humana Foundation is signaling its intent to transition from a ‘funder of programs’ to an ‘investor in results,’” said Walter Woods, CEO of the Humana Foundation. “With these major investments, we intend to target community models that can be scaled for maximum impact, focused on the broader gains that will result from the achievements our partner organizations will be able to make. And they’ll need to clearly demonstrate that by detailing targets and milestones as part of the application process.”

“In those communities outside of Louisville, the community investments we make in 2018 will go to identifying and scaling organizations with the greatest impact on improving and sustaining positive health outcomes for socially isolated and food-insecure residents,” Woods said. “These root-cause influencers on health clearly have an impact on people’s ability to live healthy lives, and we are in a position to partner with nonprofit organizations to positively impact these issues.”

Any organization – or consortium of organizations – interested in applying for a Humana Foundation Strategic Community Investment must fill out a Request for Application (RFA) and submit it to the Humana Foundation no later than April 27.

After reviewing all RFAs it receives, the Humana Foundation will then ask a group of finalist organizations to go through a more detailed application process in May. A link to the online RFA is available on the “Our Investments” page of the Humana Foundation website.

Organizations that receive a Humana Foundation Strategic Community Investment in 2018 will then have an opportunity to receive continuing funding for one or two additional years – based on the specific results they achieve over a 12-month period.

Also starting in 2018, the Humana Foundation has begun work to identify partner organizations – at the national, regional and local level – to join forces with likeminded entities for more impactful, broad based and sustainable change.