Goals, Yardsticks, and Results: A Healthcare Grant Request Example

Grant proposals should incorporate ways to measure success for two reasons. First, more and more donors are requesting evidence of results. Second, program and project goals are good to have because they help keep the organization and staff focused on the finish line, as well as provide a baseline for judging opportunities that may arise. This health care grant request includes specific, measurable goals.

Proposal to support Neptune Policy Institute's 2025 Neptune Health Choice Program
Summary Request

Neptune Policy Institute, Neptune's free market think tank, seeks a $20,000 grant in support of its Neptune Health Choice Program. Grant funds will be used to support a statewide health care educational program aimed at increasing patient choice and control, and reducing costs and improving service delivery in Neptune's health care sector. This will be accomplished through the publication of reports, commentaries, events and outreach activities. This will be a sustained program, with a three-year campaign beginning in 2025.

Through the activities in this program, Neptune Policy Institute will educate Neptuneians about available market health care solutions and enhance the Institute's position as the in-state resource center for market-based health care solutions and reforms. Also, the Institute will advance market-based health care proposals and highlight the necessary public policy changes that must happen for such reforms to succeed. With its publications and activities, Neptune will engage individuals, private organizations, the business community, and public employers in the promotion and use of available consumer-driven health care reforms. And, though Neptune does not undertake political activity, the goal of the Neptune Health Choice Program is to foster market-based health care policies by the 2026 and 2027 Neptune legislatures.

The Applicant Organization

Founded in 1891, Neptune Policy Institute is an independent, non-profit research and educational organization. Neptune's mission is to explore and advance policy alternatives that foster individual liberty, personal responsibility, and economic opportunity in Neptune.

I. Overview of Proposal

Over the past ten years Neptune Policy Institute has addressed Neptune's major health care concerns of patient choice and cost containment with common sense principles. First, individuals must be empowered to make their own health care decisions. Second, competition must be reintroduced to the health care sector, from physicians and hospital services to health insurance. Neptune has advanced Medical Savings Accounts and other competition-based ideas as a way to attain greater patient power and lower health care costs. Neptune Policy Institute has built relationships with physicians and health care professionals, and written 25 major reports and 60 commentaries on the topics of health care reform. We seek to launch a fully developed Health Choice Program that will allow us to do in-depth research and analysis of the challenges unique to Neptune and offer appropriate free-market solutions.

Integral to the success of the Neptune Health Choice campaign is the identification of a core group of Neptune medical professionals, industry officials, professors and other health care policy experts who 1) subscribe to the principles of personal responsibility, choice, and competition, or 2) are supportive of one or more of the proposed solutions or market-based alternatives. These individuals will help Neptune develop market-based policy proposals, serve as spokesmen, and lend their support as writers of, and advisors for, reports and commentaries.

A. Problem Statement/Purpose

The Neptune Health Plan, the Medicaid funded program that provides health care coverage to low-income and high-risk individuals throughout the state, is facing spiraling costs in spite of relying on rationing to rein in expenses. Nonetheless, the Neptune Health Plan is routinely upheld as a model for other states to follow, and there are recommendations to expand the program.

Criticisms of the Neptune Health Plan are common, but they do not get at the root causes of its problems, and there has been little research done regarding the program's financial outlook. Because health care, which includes the Neptune Health Plan, is the second largest categorical line item in the state budget, and the state is facing a projected $3 billion budget shortfall in the next biennium, market-based health care solutions are likely to receive greater media and political attention.

In addition to the fiscal impacts of the Neptune Health Plan, local governmental entities, including schools, are feeling the squeeze of growing health care costs, especially by approving union contracts with first dollar coverage. Businesses are also experiencing high employee health care costs, to the point of dropping coverage for employees. According to federal data, Neptune employers pay more than the national average for coverage. Thus, business should be highly receptive to market-based ideas advanced by Neptune that reduce such expenses.

Finally, signatures are being gathered for a "Health Care for All Neptunians" initiative for placement on the ballot. If successful, this measure would create universal health care coverage at the state level funded through higher taxes.

The conditions described above, in addition to projected economic conditions, suggest that health care alternatives will receive a greater hearing. Neptune currently lacks an organization that offers reasoned alternatives to the Neptune Health Plan and a market-based vision for health care provision. Through its efforts, Neptune Policy Institute seeks to provide indepth analysis of the Neptune Health Plan, and become the premier resource for free-market health care solutions in the state.

B. Plan of Action

There are four components of the Neptune Health Choice Program:

Preliminary fact-finding
We will hold discussions with free-market health policy analysts nationwide to gain broader insights into the future of health care and what strategies and topics their organizations are emphasizing. (Such discussions have already begun.) We will conduct roundtable discussions with free-market doctors, health care providers, insurers and researchers in Neptune to explore our unique situation and possible directions for the future.

Publications

We plan to publish reports and commentaries in three key areas: the Neptune Health Plan; solutions for employers; and solutions for individuals.

  • Neptune Health Plan - Conduct fiscal analysis of the current program and long-term outlook. Discuss the Health Plan's reliance on rationing, and the implications. Recommend alternative systems for low-income and hard-to-cover individuals. Explore policy changes to make coverage for such individuals more obtainable.
  • Employer solutions - Describe alternatives for employers such as defined contribution plans. Detail specific innovative systems such as MyHealthBank.com. Examine Neptune's legal barriers to Medical and Health Savings Accounts and recommend policy changes to make them a more viable solution for Neptune small businesses.
  • Individual solutions - Discuss the benefits of high-deductible policies, and research systems that could function with high-deductibles like a Medical Savings Account but could be used by an individual (by federal law MSAs are only available to employees in a group plan at a small business, or self-employed individuals). Detail innovative alternatives such as SimpleCare. Explore Medical Savings Account usage among Neptune's self-employed.

Public forums

Neptune will organize public forums to educate Neptuneians; identify and strengthen relationships with health care experts; and help identify financial supporters for our health care activities. Specifically, Neptune will:

  • Organize three meetings during 2025 for market-thinking health care professionals.
  • Organize a minimum of two conferences on consumer-driven options currently available, directed at the business community and local government employees.

Health care providers for choice

Neptune will work with the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons with the goal being to activate and better organize its Neptune members on behalf of market-based health care reforms. Neptune will continue to foster the independent relationships it has built over the past 10 years with other health care professionals who embrace free-market solutions. Those relationships, as well as new ones, could also be coordinated into an independent organization that would advocate for consumer-driven health care alternatives.

Board and staff involvement

Several Neptune staff members will be involved in the ongoing activities of the Neptune Health Choice Program, in addition to Frank Furter, who will serve as project manager. Program director Ms. Mustard Seed will facilitate publications; the Institute's director of operations will play an integral role in publication design and layout, as will administrative assistant Nota Chance, who will also attend to event coordination. Director of Fundraising Petunia Daisy, along with president Do Whopper, will play lead roles in outreach to the business community.

C. Plans for Evaluation

The five primary objectives of the Neptune Health Choice Program in 2022 are:

  • Publish one or more reports on the topics outlined above in "Publications."
  • Publish a previously published health care reform report by another think tank, with a Neptune emphasis.
  • Publish a minimum of eight health care commentaries.
  • Organize three meetings for market-thinking health care professionals.
  • Organize two conferences on consumer-driven options currently available, directed at the business community and local government employees.

These objectives would be considered a success by achieving the following targets:

  • The new reports would generate a minimum of four newspaper articles, editorials, or published commentaries each.
  • Two of the articles would be in publications new to Neptune.
  • Commentaries distributed to media would be reprinted an average of three times each.
  • Average 20 attendees at each health care professionals meeting; 50 percent of whom are new to Neptune.
  • 100 total attendees at the conferences; 50 percent of whom are new to Neptune.
  • Have four major conference co-sponsors.

Additional evaluation measures for the year 2025 include the identification of health care professionals willing to form an independent group to advocate for greater consumer choice and control and competition.

Project officer, authors, and researchers

Insert names of key people and their credentials here.

II. Budgets

A. Organizational Budget

B. Neptune Health Choice Program Budget

C. Current and Pending Health Choice Program Funders

The total budget for this campaign for 2025 is $X, of which Neptune Policy Institute seeks $20,000 from the Saturn Foundation.

Neptune will submit grant requests to....[insert names of foundations].

Additional funding will be raised through corporate sponsorships of events and registration fees or ticket purchases. Program costs may also be offset through in-kind contributions for printing and advertising.

C. Current and Past Organizational Funders

Foundations

Corporations