The Community Foundation of White County is offering Mental Wellness Grants to support innovative approaches to community problems, unexpected opportunities, and collaborative projects. The Foundation's mission, as evidenced by this grant, aligns with improving the well-being of the White County community by focusing on mental health initiatives. This aligns with a strategic priority to foster a healthier community through targeted funding.
The target beneficiaries of these grants are residents of White County, with a particular emphasis on youth, parents, and youth workers through education and training. The impact goals are to expand access to mental health services, reduce the stigma around mental health, build protective factors, especially in youth, and provide evidence-based programs that impact mental wellness.
The program prioritizes projects that demonstrate collaboration among agencies and reach as many people as possible, while also improving the ability of the organization to serve the community over the long term. These priorities reflect the Foundation's theory of change, which posits that strategic investments in collaborative and far-reaching mental wellness initiatives will lead to sustained community-wide improvements in mental health.
Expected outcomes include a more accessible and destigmatized mental health landscape in White County, with increased protective factors among youth. While specific measurable results are not explicitly detailed beyond "reach as many people as possible" and "improve the ability of the organization," successful applications will likely need to articulate their own clear metrics to demonstrate impact in line with the Foundation's interests. A total of $50,000 is available for the 2024 grants, with individual grant sizes ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.
