Through Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Local Funding Partnerships (LFP) program, the Foundation collaborates with local grantmakers to improve health outcomes for the most vulnerable among us. Grantmakers propose a funding partnership by nominating community initiatives that offer creative solutions to critical health or health care problems.

Since 1988, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded over $106 million in LFP matching grants to support innovative health and health care projects put forward by local funders. Together with more than 1,200 local funding partners we have funded 299 projects. Many of these projects challenged established practices, engaged new coalitions and offered ambitious improvements in systems and services.

RWJF invites grantmaking organizations including independent and private foundations, family and community foundations, corporate foundations, and other philanthropies to recommend projects for this funding partnership. Through LFP, local grantmakers may leverage funds from RWJF to implement new community programs that address serious health issues.

Particularly for the most vulnerable among us, factors outside the health care system such as poverty, violence, inadequate housing or education contribute significantly to poor health. Many Americans—particularly low-income families, the elderly, racial and ethnic minorities, and new immigrants—can get lost in a tangle of costly, often ineffective services that may address only one aspect of the health challenges they face. RWJF is interested in projects that address complex health and social factors as a single challenge.

Funders may be the first to identify these concerns and to help find effective solutions. Sometimes grantmakers convene groups that typically do not work together, such as organizations from both inside and outside of the health care field. Broad-based community coalitions may stimulate breakthrough ideas and benefit from early collaboration with local grantmakers. Any nonprofit agency seeking an LFP matching grant should discuss its proposal with a local funder, who may then choose to nominate the project.

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