Medtronic Foundation
OVERVIEW: The Medtronic Foundation works to expand access to healthcare, and although much of its funding goes to causes outside the United States, several million dollars a year stay in the country.
IP TAKE: Medtronic prioritizes access to health care over individual disease research. Organizations focused on public health, preventative medicine, and non-communicable conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and stroke will have the best shot at funding.
Unfortunately, this is not an accessible funder; however, rare for a grantmaker that doesn’t accept unsolicited proposals, it invites grant seekers to reach out and propose “new ideas” though the foundation doesn’t offer more details.
PROFILE: The Medtronic Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Medtronic, one of the world’s largest medical technology companies. It focuses on “improving health outcomes for underserved populations worldwide, as well as supporting communities where Medtronic employees live and give.” Although much of its funding goes outside the U.S., the foundation supports a number of public health initiatives in the U.S. These grants go to a broad range of programs, such as improving access to health care for underserved populations and chronic disease management. Medtronic’s strategy operates on three levels — “as strong partners with organizations striving to improve health outcomes, as volunteers serving as integral members of the community, and as a global citizen engaged on issues affecting underserved populations.” Although much of its funding goes outside the U.S., the foundation supports a number of public health initiatives in the U.S. Its main program areas are Global Health and Civic Engagement.
Grants for Global Health and Diseases
Medtronic’s Global Health program seeks to “partner with individuals and organizations who shape the future and save lives,” and “find ways to improve health outcomes and healthcare delivery in underserved communities through models of innovation, scale, and sustainability.” Chronic care grants “empower patients in self-care of these lifelong conditions, and ensure access to quality healthcare, and linkages to critical community and social services, to reduce barriers to care and holistically address patients’ needs and priorities.” Acute care grants work to “develop and support successful models of care for time critical events like heart attack, sudden cardiac arrest, and stroke.” Grants for patient and frontline health worker empowerment aim to “ensure their experiences are represented in critical policy and advocacy dialogues at local, national, and global levels.” This program is active in six countries: India, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, China and the U.S. Medtronic also works to make current products and therapies more readily available in underserved areas.
Grants for Public Health and Disaster Relief
Medtronic’s Civic Engagement program area supports “the vibrancy of the communities where [its employees] live and work through grant making, sponsorships and […] commitment to volunteerism.” Recent grantees in the field of public health include the North Market Wellness Resource Center in Minneapolis, MN, for “a healthcare hub for residents in a traditionally underserved part of the city,” and Rice County, MN, for “a partnership between the county’s four health systems, community organizations and the Medtronic Foundation” to provide “coordinated care that goes beyond the clinic and into the community.”
Medtronic also provides grants for disaster relief grants through its Civic Engagement program. These grants seek to help “communities prepare, respond, recover and build.” Its disaster response and relief funding typically takes the form of annual gifts to big organizations such as the American Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. However, Medtronic has given directly in response to disasters in the past, for example it gave $1 million in time, money, and supplies in response to the two earthquakes that hit Nepal in 2015, and it gave more than $46 million in COVID-19 relief efforts in 2020, including $3.8 million in “healthcare worker support and protection, mental health support, operational support and food assistance to organizations and communities in need.”
Important Grant Details:
The majority of the Medtronic Foundation’s grants range from $10,000 to $150,000. The foundation also runs an employee matching grant program. Most matching grants fall in the $1,000 to $10,000 range. Medtronic is invitation-only, unfortunately, yet it explicitly states its desire to be an “open door” to new ideas.
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