Parkinson’s Foundation Opens Its 2023 Community Grants Program
Applications accepted through January to support local exercise, wellness efforts
The Parkinson’s Foundation is accepting applications for its 2023 community grants, awarding a total of $1 million in support of local health, wellness, and educational programs helping to address the unmet needs of Parkinson’s disease communities.
Awards range from $10,000 to $25,000, and the funding period runs from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024. The application deadline is Jan. 31, 2023, and grant winners will be announced in June.
“The Parkinson’s Foundation Community Grant program showcases our continued commitment to making an impact in local Parkinson’s disease communities across the country,” John L. Lehr, the foundation’s president and CEO, said in a press release.
“Last year, we supported 137 programs in 37 states that provide services for people living in areas underserved by care programs and resources,” Lehr added.
Parkinson’s Foundation Community Grants support local programs
Grants are available to healthcare facilities, nonprofit or other tax-exempt groups, and for-profit organizations that offer free programming. Organizations must operate locally or be an affiliate or chapter of a larger organization that does. All applicants must demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
As in previous years, applications for the 2023 grant cycle need to be in support of programs that:
- Provide disease-specific exercise programs with an educational component
- Address mental health in Parkinson’s
- Reach out to and support patients’ caregivers
Previous grant recipients may apply again, although the amount of funding may be limited for organizations that have received more than three community grants.
Community grants cannot be used to support organizations’ salaries, capital expenses such as computers and furniture, exercise equipment, or indirect costs that include utilities, facility rent, and insurance. Staff or facilitator travel, memberships, accreditations, instructor training programs and/or licensing, or endowments are also not covered by the grants.
Since 2011, the Parkinson’s Foundation has invested more than $9.4 million to support 716 sustainable and measurable community-based programs for people with Parkinson’s, it stated.
“Our Parkinson’s Foundation community grant has been key to implementing the NeuroWell PD exercise program,” said Ricky Lopez, a physiologist with the Regions Hospital Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota. A foundation grant was given the NeuroWell program in 2021.
“For patients and community members facing barriers to services and resources, the funding provided by the Foundation has allowed for increased access to high-level exercise instruction and programming led by certified exercise professionals,” Lopez added.
For the 2022 grant cycle, the foundation awarded $2 million to health, wellness, and educational programs in total, with recipients including Rock Steady Boxing in Anchorage, Alaska, and Singing with Parkinson’s in Roswell, Georgia.
For more information about the community grant program, send an email to [email protected]. The foundation also plans an hourlong technical-assistance webinar on Dec. 15, starting at 1 p.m. ET, giving an overview of this cycle’s grant application process.
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