Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment Announces $6.5 Million in Funding to Improve Health and Advance Health Equity Statewide

Milwaukee, June 29, 2021 – The Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment (AHW), a statewide philanthropy based at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), has announced the award of $6.5 million to 17 projects aimed at improving health and advancing health equity across Wisconsin.

“At the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment, we are working to create a healthier state today, and for generations to come,” said Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment and senior associate dean at the Medical College of Wisconsin. “We are pleased to be supporting a set of community initiatives and research projects that show great promise to improve health in Wisconsin.”

The 17 funded projects include efforts led by community agencies and MCW researchers focused on underserved, marginalized, and stigmatized populations alongside projects that aim to address emerging and long-standing health issues across the state, including suicide, intimate partner violence, substance abuse, and access to mental health care as well as the critical needs to grow the health care and community health workforce.

“The Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment is driven by a goal to make Wisconsin the healthiest state in the nation,” said Joy Tapper, MPA, chair of AHW’s public oversight body, the MCW Consortium on Public and Community Health. “These funding awards will be part of the long-term work to improve health and advance health equity in Wisconsin today and long into the future.”

The grants bring AHW’s investment into health improvement initiatives and research discovery to $310 million since 2004, when it was established as the result of a generous financial gift from Blue Cross & Blue Shield United of Wisconsin. Today, AHW’s investments have supported 515 projects reaching every region of the state.

Find a full list of funded projects at ahwendowment.org.