September 22, 2020

Our Response to the Pandemic: We converted Health grants to General operating support and increased flexibility to all other grantees

After the Stay‐At Home order was put in place by Governor Pritzker in response to the pandemic, the Foundation streamlined the grant reporting and grant renewal process for all health grantees. Additionally, health grants were converted to general operating support in order to allow grantees to allocate the funds to where they are needed most in their clinics. The Foundation’s health grantees are serving on the frontlines of the crisis, mediating and triaging patients who are infected as well as patients with other health needs.  This allowed those grantees to focus their attention on urgent health needs.

And within the first week of the state’s stay-at-home order, we assured grantee organizations across all four of our program areas that we would give them the flexibility they need to navigate the public health crisis.  If organizations were unable to operate programs supported by the Foundation as described in the most recent grant proposal, Fry Foundation grant funds could be applied to support staff work related to the purpose of the original grant. Examples of these activities included planning, evaluation work, research activities or other projects related to the goals of the original proposal.