Created in the spring of 2025 with funds entrusted to the Eau Claire Community Foundation (ECCF) by the HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital Foundation, the Healthier Together grant – formerly known as the Community Health grant – has announced the awardees of its second cycle.

A total $179,000 in grant monies has been awarded to nine area organizations, more than doubling the initial cycle’s awards amount. Those recipients, selected from more than 30 applications, include a mix of first-time awardees and some which also received funding from the *2025 cycle.

2026 Healthier Together grant recipients

• 1000 Generations, Inc. (DBA Safe Families for Children in Wisconsin) 
• Big Brothers Big Sisters
• *Chippewa Valley Free Clinic
• Curtie Cares
• *Feed My People Food Bank
• Home for Good of Eau Claire, Inc.
• *National Alliance on Mental Illness Chippewa Valley
• Rogers Memorial Hospital Foundation, Inc.
• Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Inc.

Grant awards ranged from $10K-$25K, per organization. The monies will go toward specific efforts; Rogers Memorial Hospital Foundation’s grant, for instance, will fund expanded services for Rogers Behavioral Health.

Rogers Behavioral Health, a Wisconsin-founded nonprofit specializing in mental health and addiction treatment, broke ground this spring on what will be a new behavioral health treatment center in Chippewa Falls. Rogers Behavioral Health already has an Eau Claire location.

“This investment reflects a shared belief that everyone deserves access to compassionate, high-quality behavioral health care and that strong communities are built when we invest in people before they reach crisis,” the organization stated in a media release. “Mental health is health.”

Rogers Behavioral Health held a groundbreaking event in April 2026, at the site of what will be its new Chippewa Falls behavioral health treatment center. The facility will have 24 beds and include residential treatment, outpatient programs and more. In total, the project is an estimated $16 million lift and poised to create about 100 jobs. (Image via Facebook)

The Healthier Together grant – aided by the Community Health Endowment Fund – will support programs and asset purchases to help nonprofits “meet health needs and/or reduce health disparities in the Eau Claire area.”

The next Healthier Together grant cycle will open on April 1, 2027, with a deadline of early June (specific date not yet announced). Full applicant guidelines and requirements can be found online.

As ECCF shares on its website, “because this grant cycle was established in accordance with Catholic values, grants from this cycle will NOT fund requests that support abortion, contraception, assisted suicide, IVF or embryonic stem cell research.”

Learn more about the Eau Claire Community Foundation and its grant opportunities online at eccfwi.org.