1. New Hampshire Children’s Health Foundation relies on grantees to help achieve our goals and outcomes. Our funding awards are made to entities that appear most likely to meet this objective.
2. We believe that, with our funding, grantees use their knowledge and experience to strengthen the systems that support young children and their families, while building capacity within their own organization.
3. We’re interested in learning the applicant’s long term outcome and then we consider if New Hampshire Children’s Health Foundation funding is the right vehicle to assist the organization take the next step.
4. More isn’t always more. Piling on multiple activities and outcomes in a grant application can make it difficult to see the intended outcome. Our review seeks to understand if the applicant has proposed a clear and realistic path to achieve a realistic outcome, and can measure their progress.
5. The New Hampshire Children’s Health Foundation has long supported pilot projects in order to learn, along with the grantee, about new approaches to current issues. In other words, prior to launching a large scale effort, a phased approach enables incremental learning and modification as an integral part of the process.
6. Doing what you do better versus starting something new. From time to time, organization’s may experience a plateau. Instead of implementing a new intervention, a review of the current infrastructure and model may present opportunities for a method modification.Revising one piece of an existing model or integrating a new process into an existing model may be what’s needed. Then again, sometimes testing a new, innovative model is the right thing to do.If it’s time for a big shift in how your organization does business, we’re interested in learning why, about the proposed intervention you’ve selected, and what you expect to change as a result of the shift.
7. Limited funding requires discipline. New Hampshire Children’s Health Foundation has a limited annual grantmaking budget. We consider if the application proposal is realistic and can be fully achieved with the assistance of our funding.
8. We seek to fund what can move the applicant to the next step, versus funding something that will need to be funded again and again, after our grant award ends.
9. Data counts. Sound and effective data collection that informs the field, drives action, and uncovers key issues is a good value. New Hampshire Children’s Health Foundation grant awards used to collect, analyze and disseminate data have proven to be an important resource for multiple stakeholders across the state.
10. To what end? We use our best judgement to determine if our funding will make a meaningful impact to the systems that support young children and families.
11. We ask grantees to complement our efforts by serving healthy items at meetings and convenings funded with a foundation grant. If you’ve determined that it’s necessary to serve food at meetings and convenings, please use this guide to inform your selection of refreshments. In particular, fresh fruit and/or vegetables and water should be available with each meal or snack.
