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CORONAVIRUS/COVID-19 INFORMATION HERE

San Diego Area

Community Health is central to our mission because healthy communities are where people thrive. Like our approach to medicine, our work in the community takes a prevention-focused, evidence-based approach. In pursuit of our mission we go beyond traditional corporate philanthropy and grant-making to leverage our internal resources with our physician expertise, clinical practices, health education expertise, and technical assistance. Our commitment to community includes a robust engagement process that lifts the voice of community members and highlights priority health needs in our 2022 Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNA). Through this process, Southern California Kaiser Foundation Hospitals identified urgent social and economic factors that negatively impact community health.

Based on the CHNA findings, the 2022 Implementation Strategy (IS) Plans of Southern California Kaiser Foundation Hospitals apply a health equity lens to outline our commitment to invest, partner, and drive change to improve the health of individuals in communities we serve. While each Kaiser Foundation Hospital IS plan is unique to its service area, the high-level focus areas and strategic priorities we aim to address across Southern California in partnership with community organizations are listed below:

Access to Care: Access to comprehensive, quality health care services is critical for ensuring quality of life. Example measures of access include health care coverage and uninsurance, access to oral health and specialty care, and birth outcomes. 

Income and Employment: Economic opportunity provides individuals with jobs, income, a sense of purpose, and opportunities to improve their economic circumstances over time. Example measures include poverty and unemployment rates, and income inequality.

Housing: Safe and secure housing is essential for the health of individuals and families. Example measures include home ownership and homelessness, housing affordability, quality, and cost burden. 

Food Insecurity: Food insecurity occurs when people do not have enough resources to meet their basic needs, including having enough food to eat to lead an active, healthy life. Example measures include accessibility of retail food outlets, SNAP enrollment, and living in food-insecure households.

Mental and Behavioral Health: Mental & behavioral health affects all areas of life, including a person’s physical well-being, ability to work and perform well in school, and to participate fully in family and community activities. Example measures include access to mental health care, poor mental health and stress, and suicide and deaths of despair (Note: there is a separate need category for substance use).

Education: Higher levels of education are associated with more healthy behaviors, improved quality of life, and higher life expectancy. Example measures include preschool enrollment, on-time high school graduation, and adult educational attainment.

Across these areas, we work to inspire and support people to be healthier in all aspects of their lives, and build stronger, healthier communities. In addition to dedicating resources through Community Benefit, we also leverage substantial additional assets that improve community health, including our healthcare workforce volunteerism.

At Kaiser Permanente, we believe in using the full range of our organization’s assets to improve the health of the communities we serve. We regularly gather data and seek input from our community partners and members to inform our investments and to guide the development of strategies that can make long-term, sustainable change and improve health. We are pleased to share our 2022 Community Benefit Year-End report for the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals in San Diego that summarizes our efforts and highlight specific strategies and resources we deployed to respond to the prioritized health needs in the community.

Note: While Kaiser Permanente is committed to addressing these needs, local medical centers will strategically and carefully invite community partners to apply for funding in order to address needs that align with the local Implementation Strategy Plans, which may have some variations of the strategic priorities listed above. Please scroll down to view the areas that are currently being funded in this medical center.

San Diego Medical Center

9455 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92123
833-574-2273
View San Diego Medical Center Website

Zion Medical Center

4647 Zion Avenue
San Diego, CA 92120
View Zion Medical Center Website

Recent Related News

San Diego Area Grants Program

Grantmaking is currently closed
Note

The Kaiser Permanente San Diego and Zion Medical Centers 2023 Community Benefit Grants are awarded through a “By Invitation Only” grant process.

Kaiser Permanente San Diego provides grants to local nonprofit health and human service organizations that address the priority health needs for its community service area. The current funding priorities, funding timeline, and guidelines on how to apply are provided below.

If you would like to apply for Grant or Sponsorship Funding for a broader service area in Southern California or Nationally, visit this site for more information and to apply.

If you would like to apply for a local event sponsorship, such as: special fund raising events (luncheons, recognition dinners); conferences; symposia; public policy briefings; and health education forums; visit this site for more information and to apply. 

Current Grant Funding Priorities

Kaiser Permanente San Diego Area is currently focused on supporting the following health needs and related strategic priorities. Reviewing this area will help to ensure that your proposed grant project is aligned with these priorities.

Access to Care

  • Provide core support to safety net organizations, allowing these organizations to implement initiatives appropriate for the needs of their population (e.g., expansion of specialty care, providing more virtual care for nonsurgical specialties)
  • Support improved access and quality of medical care for persons experiencing homelessness
  • Support organizations that build capacity, provide information about coverage options, assist with eligibility screening, application and enrollment, and advocate for increasing coverage options for low-income individuals

Income and Employment

  • Support community based organization capacity building, including but not limited to, staffing, training, leadership development, and policy advocacy
  • Support organizations that provide culturally and linguistically relevant training and technical assistance to small businesses and entrepreneurs of color
  • Improve individual financial health by supporting housing, workforce development, or other organizations that embed or enhance financial coaching services
  • Enhance career pathways by partnering with workforce development organizations to develop and implement job training and placement programs, including pre-apprenticeship programs

Housing

  • Support expansion of housing-related legal support for at-risk tenants
  • Support system-level approaches to reducing homelessness (e.g., achieving quality data)
  • Support improved coordination among Continuum of Care programs, social service organizations, and housing providers

Food Insecurity

  • Support organizations that distribute food such as medical tailored meals, prepared food, produce, or other food and meals to school children, families, and those in underserved communities
  • Support organizations that increase enrollment in programs that extend food dollars such as in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and federal school meal programs

Mental and Behavioral Health

  • Support organizations advancing policies or research in focus areas: physical, mental and social health; equity and access
  • Enhance career pathways by partnering with workforce development organizations to develop and implement job training and placement programs, including pre-apprenticeship programs

Education

  • Support programs that improve high school attendance, achievement, and/or graduation for students of color in low income areas

Applicant Eligibility

To be eligible for a Kaiser Permanente San Diego Area Community Health grant, an applicant organization (or fiscal agent), must have operations in California and be one of the following types of nonprofit organizations:

  • 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt organization with a 509 (a) designation indicating that the organization is not a private foundation
  • A local, state or federal government agency, including any of its subdivisions that perform substantial government functions.

In addition, organizations must:

  • Provide direct services and/or programs for disadvantaged and/or underserved populations that address the funding priorities identified above.
  • Provide services and/or programs within the geographic boundaries of Kaiser Permanente San Diego Service Area, which includes the communities of: Bonita, Chula Vista, Coronado, Del Mar, Descanso, Dulzura, El Cajon, Encinitas, Leucadia, Olivenhain, Escondido, Fallbrook, Rainbow, Guatay, Imperial Beach, Jamul, La Jolla, La Mesa, Lakeside, Lemon Grove, Lincoln Acres, Mount Laguna, National City, Oceanside, Pala, Palomar Mountain, Pauma Valley, Pine Valley, Potrero, Poway, Ramona, Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego, San Luis Rey, San Marcos, San Ysidro, Santee, Solana Beach, Spring Valley, Tecate, Valley Center, Vista, Warner Springs
  • Remain in “good standing” by submitting all required documents, progress (if required), and/or final reports in a timely manner for all previous grants. (Refer to previous grant documents to confirm deadlines). Organizations with overdue documents, progress, and/or final reports will be deemed non-responsive and are not eligible to apply.

Kaiser Permanente San Diego Area Community Health does not consider funding requests from international, social, recreational clubs, or for the following:

  • Sports teams and tournaments (e.g., golf tournaments, tennis events, walks, and runs)
  • Individuals
  • Religious purposes
  • Partisan political activities
  • Endowments or memorials
  • Re-granting purposes to other organizations

Kaiser Permanente San Diego Area will not consider requests from organizations that discriminate based on gender, age, economic status, educational background, race, color, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, or marital status in your programs, services, policies and administration. In addition, Community Health grants will not be awarded for activities, events, or programs organized or solely sponsored by alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical companies, or companies that produce firearms.

We generally do not provide grants for academic research, capital campaigns, event sponsorships (including community health fairs), or political campaigns.

Grant Award Parameters and Considerations

Invitations will be sent out by May 15th, 2023 and the grant application cycle will close on June 15th, 2023. 

  • Core operating requests will be by invitation only at the sole discretion of Kaiser Permanente.
  • All requests should align strongly with funding priority areas and should only include support for specific community health projects that will produce a measurable impact.
  • Consideration will be given to nonprofit organizations that have not been previously funded or those without continuous grant support for the past three years. 
  • Consideration will be given to programs and projects that demonstrate a mix of funding/revenue sources to ensure program delivery and sustainability.
  • Kaiser Permanente San Diego highly encourages partnership grant requests to enhance community partnerships and capacity up to $50,000.

Partnership Grants: Kaiser Permanente San Diego highly encourages grant requests submitted by two or more nonprofit organizations partnering to address the same priority need and to provide direct complementary services to the target population.  Services provided by the partnership organizations should not be duplicative or overlapping and must demonstrate a continuum of care addressing the selected priority need. The partnership should identify a sign organization to function as the Lead Agency through established Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreements. A completed Grant Partnership Form must be submitted with the online grant application. Note: Organizations applying as part of a Partnership Grant cannot submit a separate application as an individual organization.

To View your submitted applications click here.

Grantmaking Contact

Lindsey Wright
Community Benefit Manager

By the Numbers

$822,530
Total Grants Awarded in 2022

Looking for CHNA Reports?

You can find all the CHNA Reports organized by Year and Medical Center in the Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) Section of the Service Areas Page.

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