The Bower Foundation supports innovative strategies to improve the health of Mississippians. Our proactive method in grantee selection allows us to address issues on many levels and from multiple directions. We only give grants to those who are capable and serious about making a difference.

In order to maximize our funding impact, our work focuses on four primary goals:

• Improving access to health care,
• developing healthy lifestyles among children,
• developing and promoting innovative health policy, and
• maintaining our commitment to End Stage Renal Disease.

About

We are in the business of improving lives in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. It is a daunting task because the Mid South is home to 30% of the nation’s poverty, which has eroded the well-being of our communities, education and health systems, as well as financial security. These deficiencies—if left unhindered—will continue to grow and deny further opportunities to better conditions for families today and future generations.

The Foundation for the Mid South was established to bring together the public and private sectors and focus their resources on increasing social and economic opportunity. Our approach is straightforward and long term: enable communities to develop solutions to better conditions and improve lives.

Our Priorities

The Foundation for the Mid South focuses on strengthening four priorities that, we believe, are the bedrock for prosperous communities and a strong region.

Our Education work supports efforts that help students succeed academically—by strengthening traditional education systems and programs and community institutions serving students.

In Health and Wellness, we work to promote physical and mental well-being in order to comprehensively improve the health status in the region.

In order to break the cycle of generational poverty, our Wealth Building work is helping people become financially secure so they can move up the economic ladder.

In Community Development, we invest in and partner with efforts that enable communities to grow and prosper.

Education

Our Challenge

A strong foundation of education is essential not only to individuals but to the economic success of our region. Many companies struggle to find graduates with necessary skill sets. It is important that we achieve greater graduation rates, increased college enrollment numbers, and stronger workforce preparedness levels. The national high school graduation rate is 78.2%, but Mid South states have lower rates. Males of color are particularly at risk; nationally, only 52% of black males graduate from high school in four years.

Our Opportunity

Foundation for the Mid South offers enrichment opportunities and builds skills necessary for success in high school, college and the 21st century workplace. We aim to ensure that all youth, regardless of income, geography or race, receive equitable access to an effective learning environment.

Our Strategy

We partner with individuals and organizations committed to improving high school graduation rates, college preparedness and life outcomes of students. Current areas of focus include: tutoring, coaching, career development and learning and study strategies.

• Academic Success for All Students
• Focusing on academic strategies and enrichment opportunities to help students learn in effective and innovative ways.
• Academic Success for Males of Color
• Identifying critical skills to improve academic performance and life skills for young men of color.

Wealth Building

Programs and information to enable residents to manage their finances effectively and grow their wealth.

Our Challenge

Mid Southerners make poor financial decisions because they do not have adequate financial information and training. This limits residents’ ability to acquire wealth and creates a generational cycle of poverty.

Our Opportunity

The Foundation for the Mid South will use financial competency and asset building programs to improve the financial stability of approximately 300,000 households in the region.

Our Strategy

We provide programs and information to enable residents to manage their finances effectively and grow their wealth:

• Financial Competency
• Giving individuals and families the tools they need to make smart financial decisions.
• Asset Building
• Assisting families to accumulate and preserve long-term productive assets, such as homes, education and businesses.

Health

Improve individual and community health outcomes in chronic disease, mental health, and access to care.

Our Challenge

Mid South residents have more health problems and lower life expectancy than those in other parts of the nation. Unhealthy behaviors and lack of health services contribute to these problems. Approximately 30% of adults and 20% of youth in the Mid South are obese, leading to high healthcare costs, lost wages, or even premature death. Approximately 1 million adults suffer from poor mental health, stressors which decrease learning or the ability to work. If not addressed, they can develop into serious mental disorders.

Our Opportunity

Foundation for the Mid South seeks to improve health for individuals and communities. Health is not a standalone issue; it is an interrelated part of improving our region, enabling people to learn effectively and improve their economic situations.

Our Strategy

We aim to improve individual and community health outcomes through:

• Healthy Behaviors to Reduce Obesity
• Increasing access to and use of physical activity and access to fresh, healthy foods.
• Mental Health Awareness and Access
• Helping individuals identify everyday stressors and connecting them to resources and services to address their mental health needs.
• Access to Healthcare Resources
• Ensuring individuals have access to healthcare services and knowledge to make informed decisions.

Communities

Building the skills and knowledge of communities to transform themselves.

Our Challenge

Residents need vibrant and thriving communities to be successful, but the quality of communities in the Mid South continues to lag behind the rest of the nation. Mid Southerners need safe and affordable housing, jobs that pay a living wage, access to post-secondary education and spaces where children can play.

Our Opportunity

Foundation for the Mid South believes that the solution to regional challenges lies in building the skills and knowledge of communities to transform themselves. When individuals, organizations and businesses engage in the change process, they are able to build the community they wish to see, creating vibrant places to live, work and play.

Our Strategy

Our community development work key focus areas:

• Community Enrichment
• Increasing safe, affordable housing, improving green space and parks and preserving the local environment and culture.
• Economic Development
• Strengthening the economy through workforce education and training, small business development and industry growth.
• Leadership Development
• Building the skills and capacities of local organizations working to strengthen both adult and youth leadership.
• Mississippi Delta Workforce Funding Collaborative
• The Mississippi Delta Workforce Funding Collaborative is a partnership of philanthropic, public sector, private sector, and community leaders working to improve job growth and retention for all of Mississippi. We support the development and implementation of sector based workforce partnerships in key in-demand industries. Our goal is to increase the skills and education of unemployed and/or underemployed residents of Mississippi. We work to increase the Mississippi residents’ skills, thereby allowing them to receive better paying jobs and better provide for their families.
• The Foundation for The Mid South is an Entrepreneurial Support Organization chosen by the Delta Regional Authority to participate in a learning cohort around engaging merging business leaders.

Grants

We support high-quality solutions that promote education, physical and mental health, financial security and the growth and prosperity of communities.

The Foundation For the Mid South is pleased that you’re considering us as a potential partner in your work. Our mission is to improve lives by expanding knowledge. We support efforts that create high-quality education, initiatives that encourage physical and mental health, resources that promote financial security and solutions that enable communities to grow and prosper.

The Foundation is always on the lookout for potential partners working in the Mid South region. Share your ideas with us, and if our program officers think it might fit one of our initiatives, we’ll reach out for a more formal proposal.

What We Support

Children are at the heart of everything we do at the Kellogg Foundation. Our goal is lasting, transformational change for children. As a grantmaker, we recognize that children live in families and families live in communities. Therefore, our three areas of focused work – Thriving Children, Working Families and Equitable Communities – are dynamic and always interconnected.    

Achieving strong outcomes for children happens by connecting what families need – at home, in child care settings, at school, at work and in their communities. As a foundation, we use a variety of change-making tools – grantmaking, impact investing, networking and convening. With our support, grantees and partners work together to make measurable improvements in children’s lives.

Our Interconnected Priorities:

• Thriving Children: We support a healthy start and quality learning experiences for all children.
  • improving access to high quality, early childhood education
  • support healthy birth outcomes
  • quality maternal and infant health care
  • children's early development
  • increase breastfeeding rates
  • expand access to oral health care
  • increase access to fresh, local healthy food
  • improve nutrition for children and families in early child care settings
• Working Families: We invest in efforts to help families obtain stable, high-quality jobs.
  • widen pathways to stable, high-quality jobs
  • more equitable employment opportunities
  • expand support for tribal-, minority-, and women-owned business enterprises
  • accelerate small business growth
  • inform policies and change systems to create greater economic stability
• Equitable Communities: We want all communities to be vibrant, engaged and equitable. 

Embedded within all we do are commitments to advancing racial equity and racial healing, to developing leaders and to engaging communities in solving their own problems. We call these three approaches our DNA and believe they are essential to creating the conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success.

NOTE:  The application deadline has been  extended to December 1, 2023.

About School-Based Healthcare Solutions Network (SBHSN).

Utilizing a unique framework of funding systems offered by the Department of Health and Human Services, managed care organizations, health insurers, and private donors, SBHSN promotes a system of care model (Coaching Model℠) offering a mix of evidenced-based intervention, prevention, and care coordination services to children in grades K-12. The Coaching Model aims to expand quality mental healthcare access on public school campuses and improve children's social, emotional, behavioral, family, and wellness outcomes.

School-Based Mental Health Implementation Grant

In response to the growing number of students who need mental health counseling, the School-Based Healthcare Solutions Network (SBHSN) is accepting applications from Local Education Agencies (LEA), Public and Private Universities, State and local Colleges, Charter School Management Companies, Public Schools, Charter Schools, and Non-Profit Organizations (501c3) to implement and expand mental health program services on local school campuses. Grantees will receive direct funding and reimbursement to support the following activities: 

• Expanding access to School-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).
• Coordinating mental healthcare services with school administration and staff. 
• Delivering mental healthcare services and coordinating academic-support activities to students with a history of attendance, behavior, and poor academic performance.

FUNDING

5-Years, renewable based on meeting performance goals 5-year award ceiling is $5,500,000.

Supporting Historic Sacred Places

A program of Partners for Sacred Places in collaboration with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Fund for Sacred Places provides financial and technical support for community-serving historic houses of worship across America.

What We Offer

The National Fund for Sacred Places provides matching grants of $50,000 to $250,000 to congregations undertaking significant capital projects at historic houses of worship, along with wraparound services including training, technical assistance, and planning support.

What We’re Looking For

The National Fund for Sacred Places assesses applicant eligibility according to the core criteria shown below, while also striving to build a diverse participant pool that reflects a broad range of geographic, cultural, and religious identities.

Historic, Cultural, or Architectural Significance

We are looking for buildings that have historic, cultural, or architectural significance—and sites that have important and relevant stories to tell. Many of our participants are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the state register, or the local register. Your building does not have to be on one of these lists, but eligibility for one or more of these lists is a good benchmark for National Fund eligibility.

As part of the National Trust’s commitment to telling the full American story, we particularly encourage congregations to apply that illuminate a unique or overlooked aspect of American history and that expand our understanding of our shared national heritage. We encourage submissions related to historic sacred places of importance to historically and contemporaneously underrepresented communities including, but not limited to, women, immigrants, Asian Americans, Black Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and LGBTQIA communities.

Successful applicants are able to demonstrate their place in history by answering questions such as:

• Does the building tell a story relevant to our history—either cultural or religious?
• Does the history highlight previously underrecognized communities, stories, or locations?
• How has the building served the community over time? Does the building have a great physical presence in its community due to its location or programming?
• Is the building the work of a notable architect? If so, is it a high-quality example of their body of work?
• Is the building an exceptional example of its architectural style or building technology?
• Does the building embody the congregation’s resilience over time?

Community-Serving Congregations

We are looking for congregations that are engaged in their communities and that are serving others. Engaged congregations operate and host programming that serves vulnerable, at-risk, and diverse populations; share space with non-affiliated groups and organizations (often at subsidized rates); work with other congregations, faith-based organizations, nonprofit organizations, and/or municipalities; and have a widespread reputation for being a welcoming center of community life.

Project Scope and Need

We fund historic preservation projects addressing urgent repair needs and/or life safety. We also fund projects that increase congregations’ ability to open their buildings to new populations or to serve greater numbers of people. All projects must adhere to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, which is a universally accepted framework for doing work to older and historic properties.

We prioritize congregations/projects where there is a demonstrated need (meaning that the congregation cannot raise the funds alone) or where it is clear that our grant will have a catalytic effect (meaning that our grant is likely to lead to additional monies being contributed to the project).

Readiness

Once-in-a-generation capital projects require a great deal of planning. We are looking for applicants that understand their buildings’ needs and that are ready to undertake a capital campaign. National Fund congregations typically have a history of successful capital campaigns, which demonstrate an ability to raise significant funds and complete a project.

Successful congregations come to us with a realistic fundraising goal, which has been generated with the help of qualified preservation professionals and is not too far beyond the congregation’s fundraising capacity.

Healthy Congregations

The National Fund prioritizes healthy, stable congregations so that our investment is truly impactful and lasting. We look for the following, although this is not an exhaustive list of characteristics that indicate healthy congregations: tenured, well-respected clergy; capable lay leadership; stable or growing membership; financial strength and stability; support of the judicatory or governing body, if applicable; and a history of weathering any congregational conflict or trauma with resilience.

Community Grant Fund

Grant decisions will be made by our employee Community Grant Councils (CGC) based in each of the regions in which MGM Resorts International operates domestically. Each CGC meets and evaluates grant proposals from nonprofit agencies in its respective region to determine how the community grant funds will be allocated.

Funding Areas

The Program will give priority to funding for agencies/projects/programs that provide services in the following focus areas:

• Affordable Housing
• Economic Opportunity/ Workforce Development
• Education K-12
• Family Services
• Food Insecurity
• Health and Wellness
• Homelessness
• Services for Seniors
• Services for Veterans and Military Families

MGM Resorts Foundation grants are for a one-year period and do not automatically renew.

Mission

The mission of the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) is to advance the progress of medicine and improve the public's health by providing U.S. researchers, health professionals, the public health workforce, educators, and the public with equal access to biomedical and health information resources and data.

Purpose

The Innovation Impact Award supports new projects that involve creative program improvement and seek to enhance health information outreach. These innovative projects may not fit squarely into the other award categories for Region 2. However, projects awarded in this category will still align with our larger funding objectives of enhancing the community’s access to health information resources, improving defined health literacy skills, and building community members’ confidence to make informed decisions regarding their health. The approach to these projects may be unique but will have the potential to make a large impact from their distinctive project design.

Potential Project Ideas

• Purchase software or hardware to improve operations in community organizations, health service organizations, libraries, or academic institutions in order to serve their constituents better.
• Pilot a reading group using the materials from the NNLM Reading Club about a prevalent health topic.
• Develop a more accessible and/or culturally inclusive collection of materials (ex: Spanish language, books by diverse authors, graphic novels about health issues, large print books).
• Form a mentoring group and schedule a professional development week for young people related to health issue. This program could integrate an educational component. Recruit adult mentors to support the program. 

Romay Davis Belonging, Inclusion and Diversity Grant

SEG celebrates our diverse associates, customers and communities, and cultivates an environment that champions inclusion and belonging within our company and the unique neighborhoods we serve. Over the last year, we have expanded our charitable giving focus to support like-minded organizations that share our commitment to elevating belonging, inclusion and diversity while empowering authenticity, educating the broader society and eliminating deep-seated barriers.

Our Romay Davis Belonging, Inclusion and Diversity Grant Program provides essential funding to organizations that equally support inclusivity and take meaningful action to help combat social injustice by bridging the gap of inequities faced by many individuals, families and communities. Since 2020, we have contributed more than $685,000 to help build a more inclusive and equitable future.

The grant supports organizations that work to address racial disparities in health care, food insecurity and education, while building a more inclusive and equitable future for all.

Ms. Foundation for Women

The mission of the Ms. Foundation for Women is to build women’s collective power in the U.S. to advance equity and justice for all. We achieve our mission by investing in, and strengthening, the capacity of women-led movements to advance meaningful social, cultural and economic change in the lives of women. Ms. has six grantmaking initiatives, one of which is the Birth Justice Initiative.

Birth Justice Initiative

Our Birth Justice Initiative aims to:

• advance equitable birth outcomes and experiences;
• strengthen the capacity, organizational infrastructure, and financial stability of grassroots Black, Indigenous and women of color-led birth justice organizations; and
• expand the frame of birth justice to support intersectional movements and strategies that recognize the full spectrum of experiences and identities in birthing, parenting, and family building.

We believe that Black, Indigenous, and women of color (including trans women and non-binary people) are key experts and should be decision-makers in shaping policy and culture change around birth justice. By investing directly into organizations led by and for women and girls of color, we are ensuring that the movement to address racial based disparities in healthcare, including birth outcomes and experiences, is led by those who are impacted most. Strengthening the collective power of communities of color is critical to addressing the root causes of these disparities and advancing birth justice for all.

The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates of all developed nations and Black women die at three to four times the rate of white women in birth – one of the widest racial disparities in women’s health. Systemic racism, implicit bias, and anti-Blackness all contribute to the significant disparities in birth outcomes among Black, Indigenous and birthing people of color. Moreover, the spectrum of intersectional issues that comprise birth justice and the ability to have children and parent with dignity, are not only limited to the birth process.

As such, the Ms. Foundation’s Birth Justice Initiative invests in organizations who represent the full spectrum of birth experiences including–but not limited to–preconception health, mental health and wellness, infertility, abortion access and abortion care, comprehensive sex and sexuality education, non-racist culturally affirming and gender expansive healthcare, access to birth workers of color, access to lactation support and services, postpartum health and wellness, grief and loss care and support, and sexual assault prevention and survivor support services. Organizations supported collectively utilize a range of movement building strategies to advance birth justice—such as narrative change, policy and systems change, advocacy, leadership development, direct service among others. And finally, they work at the intersection of birth justice and other movements, such as disability justice, youth justice, LGBTQIA+ justice, environmental justice, economic justice, and criminal legal reform.

Funding

During this cycle, Ms. will provide one-time grants ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 to selected organizations not currently receiving funding from Ms.’ Birth Justice Initiative. The grant period will comprise two years.