The Health Foundation for Western and Central New York is dedicated to improving the health and health care of the people and communities of western and central New York. Find out in this section about how we evolved, what we believe and the people who make the Foundation work.

Founded in 2002 as the Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York, we issued our first request for proposals in September 2003 and made our first grants in April 2004.

Since that time, we have been committed to creating opportunities for long-term program improvement by working with community partners to develop, implement and support innovative programs and initiatives.

From our inception, we have focused our funding and initiatives on improving health outcomes for two of the most vulnerable and underserved populations in our regions - frail elders and children living in communities of poverty.

In 2009, the Foundation re-evaluated its efforts and sharpened its focus within both populations. Since that time, we have concentrated on deferring the consequences of frailty among elders and on helping elders function successfully in the community with effective health care and supports. To help young children be healthy and ready to succeed in school, the Foundation prioritizes initiatives to primarily invest in children ages birth to five. And, in support of both groups, we invest in strengthening health capacity in the communities in our regions.

In July 2012, the Foundation announced that it changed its name to the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York.

Based in Buffalo, NY, with a second office in Syracuse, NY, the Health Foundation serves the following counties (see map below) :

Western New York		Central New York
Allegany Cattaraugus Chautauqua Erie Genesee Niagara Orleans Wyoming		Cayuga Cortland Herkimer Madison Oneida Onondaga Oswego Tompkins

With an endowment of $100 million, the Foundation has a responsibility to foster and support projects that will make a difference in our regions’ health care outcomes.

The Health Foundation has an allocation formula for its spending targets between western and central New York that relates to:

• the asset value that each of the original regional HMO partners brought to their merger when they were purchased by Excellus BlueCross/BlueShield; and
• the relative populations of the two eight-county areas.

The allocation formula produces a spending ratio of slightly more than 2:1 for the western New York region compared to the central New York region.

The Board of Trustees has the authority to make exceptions to this allocation or to waive the application of it for particular projects.

We invite you to browse our website and learn more about our work and the programs and initiatives we support.

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