The health sector grant funding landscape is abuzz with excitement. The new Health Care Innovation Challenge program is providing $1 billion in funding for projects that offer innovations in service delivery and payment modeling. The primary target population for the funding are those individuals enrolled in CMS insurance programs, which includes Medicare, Medicaid, and Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP). While applicants can address other populations, the project will not be funded unless one of the three CMS-insured populations are incorporated at some level.

With what seems like a never-ending saga of budget cuts, organizations across the country continue to seek out alternative sources of funding such as grants from different government sources or private foundations. Many of these requests, perhaps unsurprisingly, tend to be for basic operating expenses, salaries, or equipment such as new computers or technology. Even as more organizations line up to compete for grants for basic purposes, funders are actually seeking much more comprehensive projects beyond these kinds of requests.