Participatory Grantmaking Project

The Partnership for Better Health champions and invests in ideas, initiatives, and collaborations to advance equity and improve the health of the people and communities in our region. In our latest strategic plan, our organization has made a strong commitment to centering the lives of people with lived experience.

Centering lived experience means creating space for people to share their experiences and expertise, and for that expertise to be valued and incorporated in decision-making (Poverty Action Lab). To center those with lived experience goes beyond focusing on a specific group as the beneficiary of an organization’s mission. Centering lived experience is to elevate voices of those who are not always heard by including individuals of diverse backgrounds in strategy development and guiding of work, as well as representation within staff and board membership.

One critical way to center people with lived experience is to engage in a participatory grantmaking process. Participatory grantmaking is the practice of ceding grantmaking power to affected community members and constituencies. In practice, it means placing affected communities at the center of grantmaking by giving them the power to decide who and what to fund. This form of grantmaking requires both a recognition of the unequal power relationships inherent in philanthropy as well as a conscious effort to rebalance that power (The Fund for Global Human Rights).

2025 Application – Social Isolation and Loneliness

In early 2025, the Partnership awarded our first grants under the Participatory Grantmaking Program! Our first project was guided by community members who care deeply about the health and life outcomes of their fellow community members. The 2024 cohort created its first grantmaking opportunity centered on addressing loneliness and social isolation in our Service Area.

The funded projects range from programs that center senior wellbeing, community-based conversations exploring trauma with youth, and other collaborative activities that advance togetherness.

List of 2025 Participatory Grant Awardees:

• Amelia Givin Library – Adult Programming Project
• Bethany House of Cumberland County – Family Night
• Branch Creek Place Senior Center – Support Groups and Peer Counseling
• Central Perry Community Senior Citizen’s Center – Evenings Out
• Community Meal Networking – Shippensburg Community Meals
• Domestic Violence Services of Cumberland & Perry Counties – Trauma-informed Support Groups & Advisory Board
• Employment Skills Center – Student Connection Project
• Perry County Council of the Arts – Strengthen Connections Through the Arts
• Reins of Rhythm Riding & Horsemanship – Silver Strides – Bringing Seniors & Youth Together
• Shippensburg Community Resource Coalition – Shippensburg Teen Nights
• St. Andrews’s Episcopal Church & Grace Place Gardens – A Seat Around the Table
• YWCA Carlisle and Cumberland County – Second Season: A Gathering for Women in their Second Season of Life