Grantmaking

In order to fulfill its mission to enhance community health and wellness, The Horizon Foundation conducts ongoing strategic planning and actively engages community leaders and citizens groups to analyze and identify the most urgent community health issues. Initially, The Horizon Foundation has identified four primary areas of focus for proactive grantmaking: adolescent health and wellness, older adult health, community crisis and emergency response, and access to care.

The Horizon Foundation subscribes to a broad-based approach to improve the health and wellness of Howard County residents, including upgrading the quality of life within specific geographic areas. Enhancing health and wellness on multiple levels is a shared responsibility, which entails forming partnerships with local and state governments, academic institutions, the business community, other philanthropies, not-for-profit and volunteer organizations.

The lessons learned from evaluating grant initiatives are valued by the Horizon Foundation. Submitting a plan for evaluating the project is an essential component of all grant proposals. It is equally important to know what a project target is, what processes will be used to reach the target, and what measurement techniques will be used to document achievement. Measuring project outcomes reveals what is working and what needs to be changed. Results of an initiative provide information for guiding future decision making for the Foundation and the grantee.

Grantmaking programs of The Horizon Foundation fall into the following five categories:

Proactive Grants are initiated by The Horizon Foundation to affect change in identified priority areas.

Capacity Building Grants are initiated by The Horizon Foundation and seek to expand an existing organization's capabilities to address critical health concerns.

Responsive Grants including Strategic Initiatives Program (SIP) grants, intended to stimulate positive changes in major health and wellness issues that affect Howard Countians and the Community Health Issues Program (CHIP) grants are solicited on an annual basis to respond to the needs of organizations.

President's Discretionary Grants fund urgent requests or projects that require funding outside of The Horizon Foundation's various grant cycles.

For more information on evaluation guidelines, the universal grant application and the grant final budget report, visit the Grant Application section of the website.

The Horizon Foundation does not fund ongoing operating costs or deficits, and will not typically fund "brick-and-mortar" capital projects.