For the past six years, the grant program has distributed $14.7 million dollars into the community through 228 grants, supporting the collective work of 72 unique organizations. 

We are grateful to stand with so many dedicated partners working to improve our community’s behavioral health system. As we open our seventh year of grantmaking, you’ll notice some changes to funding amounts, as well as a streamlined renewal application process for eligible organizations. 

The program updates are informed by the funding trends we’ve analyzed from our six prior grant cycles, as well as what past grantees, applicants, grant reviewers, county leadership, and our three advisory groups have told us. As stewards of these sales-tax dollars, we value feedback from all of our stakeholders and will continue to make improvements each year to invest these funds in ways that will have the most impact in our community. 

Award amounts

• Organizations will now apply for grants of $25,000, $50,000, $75,000 or $100,000.
  • We know it can be frustrating or confusing when you request $35,750 but receive $26,000. Receiving a partial award forces you and your teams to adjust programs and budgets after investing valuable time during the application process. It also takes about six hours for our amazing team of subject-matter experts to review a growing number of applications each cycle.
  • This change is intended to reduce workload for applicants and reviewers, as well as the number of partial grant awards.

New grant renewal process, eligibility 

• This is a pilot process that will be analyzed after its first year.
• Half of available $2.8 million in funding will go to organizations eligible for renewal, and half will go to those that apply as part of the typical process.
• Those eligible for renewal must:
  • Be a 2024 grantee,
  • Have received and effectively managed five or more BHS grants,
  • Continue to be prioritized for funding by reviewers,
  • Consistently meet reporting requirements and objectives,
  • Have submitted at least four final reports as evidence that an ongoing program is demonstrating efficacy over time.
• Those eligible for renewal in the 2025 grant cycle can expect to be contacted by a member of the Behavioral Health Services staff in April 2025.
• Data show that 70% of awards in previous cycles have been continuations. This change maintains a transparent, efficient, and competitive process by allocating 50% toward renewals. 

The “why” 

• There are more requests for funding than we have available to grant.
• Rather than spread these as thin as possible across as many organizations as possible, we want to continue funding organizations that are showing a positive impact over time.
• That said, we also want to fund new organizations, organizations that are still growing program efficacy, and organizations that want to serve people in new and innovative ways.
• This remains a competitive process, and BHS is committed to being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.

Mark your calendars

• Working over the weekend to submit grant applications is never fun, so we've committed to making Friday the deadline moving forward.
• Applications will be accepted starting May 13 and are due at 5 p.m. Friday, June 13. Recipients will be announced in late August 2025 or early September 2025.
• You can expect additional communication, as we get closer to the application window opening.