Health Care
The Duke Endowment believes that all people can achieve their best health when communities are designed to support healthy lifestyles and when our health care system is able to engage patients and provide holistic care that meets the unique needs of each individual.
Challenge
The U.S. spends more on health care per capita than any other country but does not achieve better outcomes in terms of life expectancy, health status or patient satisfaction. It fails to provide equal opportunities for health and well-being to all segments of the population. These failures contribute to large disparities in health status and health care utilization based on a range of social factors. Our health care system is designed to provide excellent medical care to the sick; however, it often fails to take a comprehensive approach to preventing illness and supporting wellness.
Our Objective
We seek to improve health status and reduce health disparities in the Carolinas by ensuring all people can access timely and appropriate health care, lead a healthy lifestyle and have their basic social needs met.
What We Fund
Improving health and reducing health disparities will require communities and the health care system to innovate. We look for opportunities to support the development and testing of new approaches that can outperform the current standard of care. These new approaches will require robust evaluation plans that can build the evidence necessary to understand what works and accelerate the systemic reforms necessary to scale and sustain best practices.
Our founder’s keen interest in innovation drives us to consider new ways to optimize person-centered and community-based approaches to improving health. The majority of grants will follow one of our two strategies.
Strategies
Build Community Coalitions
We build coalitions that bring together health systems, public health agencies and community-based organizations to advance programs and policies that promote healthy lifestyles.
Advance Innovation
We partner with health systems and community-based organizations to identify, develop and test innovative programs that have the potential for long-term scale and sustainability.
Apply for a Grant
Select 501(c)(3) organizations in North Carolina and South Carolina may be eligible to receive funding.
- The Health Care program area uses a short pre‑application to confirm eligibility and project fit.
- Pre-application deadlines are May 15 and November 15.
- The portal opens approximately six weeks before each deadline and is only available during that time. Pre-applications are reviewed on a rolling basis up until the deadline.
- After review of the pre-application, applicants will either be:
- Invited to submit a full application, or
- Notified that the project does not align with current priorities
- Full application deadlines are June 15 and December 15
- To begin the application process, please click on “Start a New Application” below
Before You Proceed
The Duke Endowment’s grant application and reporting process is powered by Blackbaud. If your organization currently uses Blackbaud, please use your existing login credentials to access the grantee portal. If your organization does not have a current Blackbaud ID, please select “create account” when prompted to login. For a step-by-step process click here.
You can access all previous and in-progress applications through the grantee portal.
Funding Priorities
School-Based Mental Health
Consistent with national statistics, North Carolina and South Carolina have seen children's mental health reach emergency levels. Our Health Care program partners with schools to support innovative, systems-based approaches to mental health that help ensure all children are healthy and ready to learn.
Population Health
As the United States advances value-based payment methodology, the Health Care program area is building capacity at the state, regional and local level to link government, health, and social services so that Carolinians have the opportunity to increase healthy behaviors and address their social needs.
Expanding Access to Care for Vulnerable Populations
Across the Carolinas, too many vulnerable residents lack insurance or go underserved. The Health Care program area seeks to reduce health disparities, improve clinical outcomes and reduce inappropriate hospital utilization by increasing access to essential services for low-income uninsured adults and underserved populations.
Maternal & Infant Health
The Health Care program area seeks to improve maternal and infant health outcomes and reduce health disparities.
Improving Community Health through Healthy People, Healthy Carolinas
The Duke Endowment launched its Healthy People, Healthy Carolinas Initiative in 2015 to help communities in North Carolina and South Carolina address chronic health issues such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Related Posts
Building Lasting Connections for Change: Six Lessons Learned for Successful Cohorts
May 1, 2026 | Justin M. Dunham, Stacy E. Warren
