FAQ: General Information

What are your funding priorities?

The Aetna Foundation focuses its grant making efforts to improve health and the health care system in three core program areas:

• Obesity: To address the rising rate of obesity among U.S. adults and children
• Racial and ethnic health care equity: To promote equity in health and health care for common chronic conditions and infant mortality
• Integrated health care: To advance high-quality health care by:
  • Improving coordination and communications among health care professionals
  • Creating informed and involved patients
  • Promoting cost-effective, affordable care

Projects outside these areas may be considered for funding, but our grant making guidelines are written with this enhanced focus in mind.

Note:   Applications that address more than one of the three program areas will receive priority consideration.


What do you fund?

Research:  Proposals that will generate new knowledge, using both quantitative and qualitative techniques

Projects:  Initiatives that will test, apply or disseminate new practices, or evaluate programs designed to improve health and health care

Policy:  Efforts to analyze and promote policies to ensure that programs and practices to improve health and health care can be replicated and disseminated broadly

Sponsorship/Other:  Fund-raising events (such as galas and walks), outreach activities (such as health fairs), and other community-based health and wellness initiatives


You have supported projects to address obesity and health disparities in the past. What’s different now? 

In obesity, we will focus on clarifying the causes of the obesity epidemic, particularly among minority populations.  We want to find answers to what contributes to obesity among U.S. adults and children, including the “built environment," food choices and physical activity.

We also remain committed to enhancing racial and ethnic equity in health and health care.  We have expanded this focus to include reducing disparities in infant mortality.

Our focus on promoting integrated care is a new direction for us. It is designed to support projects that improve quality of care by emphasizing the importance of good care coordination -- particularly for patients with chronic conditions, or after hospitalization. It also supports efforts to make patients active participants in managing their health, as well as projects that demonstrate best practices for achieving high-quality care while making care more affordable.


Do you fund locally focused projects? 

We will consider proposals that are both national and regional in scope, defined as follows:

National:  Not limited to one geographic area; having national impact and relevance

Regional: Impact and relevance are focused on a region, state or community. Such projects will be concentrated in the following locations:

• Arizona (Phoenix)
• California (Los Angeles)
• Connecticut (statewide)
• Florida (Miami)
• Georgia (Atlanta)
• Illinois (Chicago)
• Maryland (Baltimore and D.C. areas)
• New Jersey (statewide)
• New York (New York City)
• Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
• Texas (Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio)

Although our primary interest is in these locations, we will consider applications for proposals focused elsewhere.

It is up to our discretion as to whether a proposal meets our geographic criteria.


Does your new focus affect your regional and Connecticut grants programs? 

Working with local communities is very important to us. We will continue to support communities, particularly those in which our employees live and work, including Connecticut. We also are interested in supporting proposals that bring the efforts of our national programs (in obesity, racial and ethnic health equity, and integrated care) to the local level.


What do you look for in deciding whether to fund a proposal? 

We consider a range of criteria, including:

• Relevancy to our program areas
• Quality of the application, including innovation, originality, best practices and impact
• Strength of project and evaluation plan
• Feasibility of project success, including availability of needed resources; budget; organizational capacity; and qualifications of key personnel and collaborators
• Impact on designated issue and population served (clearly defined and quantified)
• Potential for generalizabilty of results to improve health and health care
• Quality of communications and dissemination plan, including presentations, conferences and related events, white papers, publications, and policy analyses
• Applied, not theoretical, significance of proposed research objectives (research proposals)
• Appropriateness and adequacy of experimental design and proposed research methodology (research proposals)
• Adequacy of research methods and evaluation components, including survey techniques and data analysis (research proposals)

What don't you fund?

• Endowment or capital costs, including construction, renovation or equipment
• Direct delivery of reimbursable health care services
• Basic biomedical research
• Grants or scholarships to individuals
• Work for which results and impact cannot be measured
• Advertising
• Advocacy, political causes or events
• Sacramental or theological functions of religious organizations
• Operational expenses/deficits

What types of organizations do you support? 

Nonprofit organizations with evidence of IRS 501(c)(3) designation or de facto tax-exempt status. You will need your tax identification number to enter the online application system.


Do you support international projects? 

Our grant making is currently limited to U.S.-based nonprofit organizations.


How large are your grants, and how long do they last? 

The number and size of grants depend on the quantity and quality of applications we get. Grants will not necessarily be distributed equally across programs or locations, nor will full amounts requested necessarily be awarded. Grant limits include 15% indirect costs.

National grant requests may not exceed $250,000 nor have a timeline that exceeds two years in length; regional grant awards generally will be $25,000 to $50,000 - not to exceed $50,000 and generally should not exceed one year in length.

Sponsorship applications are managed, reviewed and awarded by Aetna's Community Relations & Urban Marketing Department. Generally, sponsorship requests range from $5,000 to $15,000, but in no event may they exceed one year in length or $25,000.