We are excited to announce our Advocacy Pilot Grant Program, supporting ten organizations engaged in local advocacy work!
The “Building Advocacy Together” Pilot Grant Program
This pilot grant program is a way for Cone Health Foundation to support organizations that address health inequities at the systems level through advocacy efforts, such as community organizing, providing public testimony, voter registration, educating institutions, research, and more.
- A Simple Gesture
- Action Greensboro
- American Friends Service Committee of the Carolinas
- Beloved Community Center
- Black & Brown Women’s Voting Initiative
- Guilford Green Foundation
- The Partnership Project
- Politisit
- Siembra NC
- synerG
Our Advocacy Journey
At Cone Health Foundation, we are constantly asking ourselves how we can better meet and support community needs. For years, we have engaged in state-level advocacy work around Medicaid expansion and community engagement. As we sought community input on our evolving strategic direction, we heard requests specifically to support grant partners to engage in advocacy work that addresses health inequities at the systems-level.
Supporting organizations doing advocacy work at the local level is a learning space for us, so we want to be thoughtful, intentional, and mindful of existing context and relationships. We aim to enter the local advocacy space with humility, acknowledging what we don’t know and learning how to engage most effectively.
To that end, our continued investment in advocacy efforts will follow a three-phase approach, starting with this “Building Advocacy Together” pilot.
Phase 1: “Building Advocacy Together” Pilot
In this first phase, we will work with ten organizations engaged in local advocacy work in a focused container, documenting learnings to incorporate into the next phases of our advocacy-focused grantmaking.
Phase 2: Capacity Building Grant
Organizations doing advocacy work who were eligible to apply for our CBO capacity building grant, alongside our more “traditional” community partners engaged in service and program delivery.
Phase 3: Advocacy Pillar
In 2026, we aim to incorporate the learnings from Phases 1 and 2 as we launch Phase 3, a more robust and deep investment in advocacy projects across our social drivers of health.
We’re excited to support these ten organizations in the “Building Advocacy Together” pilot and to grow our local advocacy work in the months to come. As we deepen our involvement in systems-level change, we remain committed to our ultimate mission of eliminating health inequities by advocating for and investing in community-driven solutions.
