Elevance Health Foundation Maternal/Infant Health Grants 2026: Multi-Year Funding for U.S. Nonprofits Closing Disparities From Preconception to One Year Postpartum

Elevance Health Foundation Maternal/Infant Health Grants 2026: Multi-Year Funding for U.S. Nonprofits Closing Disparities From Preconception to One Year Postpartum

The United States has some of the worst maternal and infant health outcomes in the developed world, and those outcomes are not shared equally — preterm birth rates, severe maternal morbidity, and infant mortality all fall hardest on Black, Indigenous, rural, and low-income families. The Elevance Health Foundation, the philanthropic arm of one of the country’s largest health companies, has built one of its signature grant programs squarely around that problem. Its Maternal/Infant Health program funds U.S. nonprofits working to reduce disparities and improve outcomes across the entire pregnancy journey, and the current cycle is open now with an application deadline of July 31, 2026.

This guide is built from the Foundation’s own grantseeker materials rather than a reposted press release. It walks through what the program funds, who qualifies, which states are prioritized, how the application works through the Benevity portal, and how to build a competitive proposal. If your organization does hands-on work anywhere along the arc from preconception care to the first year of a baby’s life, the July 31, 2026 deadline is worth a serious look before you commit staff time to writing.

Key Details at a Glance

Use the table as a first screen. The sections below explain the reasoning behind each line so you can judge fit before starting an application.

What the Program Funds

The Maternal/Infant Health program supports nonprofit programs that address disparities, social needs, and barriers to care throughout the pregnancy journey. The Foundation frames this deliberately broadly — “from pre-conception support to postnatal care” — because it recognizes that maternal and infant outcomes are shaped long before and well after delivery. In practice, the Foundation has described its current strategy as a holistic, five-year commitment (launched in January 2025) that supports women through the full continuum of the maternal and infant health cycle, including physical, behavioral, and social needs, from preconception health and family planning through supporting mothers and infants for 12 months postpartum.

The stated goals for funded work center on measurable improvement, especially:

• Reducing disparities in preterm birth rates.
• Reducing disparities in severe maternal morbidity — the near-miss, life-threatening complications that disproportionately affect some communities.
• Improving maternal and infant health outcomes more broadly, including behavioral and social drivers of health.

Because the Foundation is a corporate health-sector funder, it tends to favor programs that are evidence-informed, that can demonstrate outcomes, and that have a credible path to scale or systemic influence. This is not a program built for one-off events or awareness campaigns. It is built for organizations delivering or enabling care, closing gaps in access, and moving the numbers on outcomes that the field can actually measure.

How Much You Can Receive

The Foundation does not publish a fixed award range for this program. Instead, it states plainly that grant amounts are open and that funding levels are determined based on several factors, including the demonstrated need and the strength of the plan presented to address it. Grants generally last from one to three years, which makes this one of the more meaningful funding sources for organizations that need multi-year stability rather than a single-year injection.

Public reporting gives a sense of scale even though it should not be read as a promise for any individual applicant. The Foundation has described investing roughly $30 million over three years in maternal and infant health, reaching 46 nonprofit organizations across the country, and in one recent round it announced $6.5 million awarded to strengthen maternal and infant health nationwide. Those figures imply substantial, program-level grants rather than small micro-grants — but the honest takeaway is that you should build a budget around what your program genuinely needs and can execute, and let the Foundation set the level. Do not anchor on a specific number; the official materials do not commit to one.

Who Is Eligible

Eligibility is centered on U.S. nonprofit status and program focus:

• 501(c)(3) public charity status. Applicants must be registered nonprofit organizations recognized as public charities under U.S. tax law. This is a program for organizations, not individuals.
• U.S.-based work. The Foundation considers proposals from qualified nonprofit organizations across the United States.
• Geographic targeting. The Foundation funds two kinds of programs: national programs that promote scalable, systemic change, and local programs based in one of ten priority states — California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. These states map closely to Elevance Health’s operating footprint. If your work is local and sits outside those states, a national/systemic framing is the only realistic path, and it needs to be genuinely national in reach rather than a local project relabeled.
• Topical fit. The program is specific to maternal and infant health across the preconception-to-postpartum continuum. Adjacent work — general women’s health, pediatric care unconnected to the maternal cycle, or broad social services — is a weaker fit unless you can draw a direct line to maternal and infant outcomes.

Before you invest time, confirm all three of these: your tax status, your geography (national-and-scalable or in a priority state), and your topical alignment. Organizations that screen themselves honestly at this stage save the most effort.

The Application Process

The Foundation runs a structured, portal-based process. Based on its grantseeker guidance, the path looks like this:

1. Review the program overview. Read the Maternal/Infant Health page and confirm your fit against the goals and geography before anything else.
2. Download the Maternal/Infant Health RFP. The request for proposals is the authoritative document. It defines exactly what information the Foundation wants, how the narrative should be structured, and what supporting materials to attach. Treat the RFP as your checklist.
3. Watch the grantseeker webinar. The Foundation provides a recorded webinar and FAQs for applicants. These typically clarify priorities, common questions, and what reviewers are looking for — free intelligence you should not skip.
4. Complete and submit the application through the Benevity portal. Applications are submitted online through the Foundation’s grants platform. You will generally need to register or log in, complete the application form, and upload the materials specified in the RFP.
5. Submit before the July 31, 2026 deadline. Corporate grant portals get slow and error-prone near a hard cutoff. Aim to finish a day or two early so a technical glitch does not cost you the cycle.

Because the exact required materials are defined in the downloadable RFP, the single most important early step is to pull that document and read it end to end. Do not rely on secondary summaries — including this one — for the final list of attachments, word limits, or budget format.

What Reviewers Are Looking For

A corporate health foundation reviewing maternal and infant health proposals tends to weigh a consistent set of qualities. Position your application around them:

• A clear disparity you are closing. The program is explicitly about reducing disparities. Name the specific gap — which population, which outcome (preterm birth, severe maternal morbidity, postpartum access), in which place — and back it with data.
• Evidence that your approach works. Show the model, the evidence base behind it, and any outcomes you have already achieved. Reviewers funding multi-year grants want confidence that the intervention is sound, not experimental hope.
• A credible measurement plan. Because the Foundation’s goals are framed around measurable reductions, you need defined metrics, a baseline, and a realistic method for tracking change over the grant term.
• Scale or systemic potential. For national applicants especially, articulate how the work spreads — through policy, replication, provider networks, or infrastructure — rather than staying confined to a single site.
• Reach across the continuum. Programs that connect stages (preconception, prenatal, delivery, postpartum through 12 months) or that address social and behavioral drivers alongside clinical care align well with the Foundation’s holistic framing.
• Organizational capacity. Multi-year grants go to organizations that can execute. Clean financials, relevant partnerships, and a track record all reduce the reviewer’s perceived risk.

Preparation Strategy

The strongest applications are usually assembled by teams that started weeks before the deadline. With the cutoff on July 31, 2026, a practical plan looks like this:

• Now: Confirm eligibility, download the RFP, and watch the webinar. Decide whether you are applying as a national/systemic program or a local program in a priority state, and commit to that framing.
• Early: Draft your problem statement and the disparity data behind it. Line up the outcome metrics you will promise and the baseline you will measure against.
• Middle: Write the program narrative and build a defensible multi-year budget tied to the plan. If partnerships strengthen your reach or credibility, secure letters or commitments now rather than in the final week.
• Final week: Proofread against the RFP checklist, confirm every required attachment is uploaded in the Benevity portal, and submit early.

If your materials are not genuinely ready by late July, it is worth knowing that the Foundation runs recurring cycles across its focus areas; a stronger application in a future round generally beats a rushed one now. But if you are eligible and on-mission, this cycle is a real, timely opportunity with a hard July 31, 2026 date.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Applying from outside the geography. Local programs must be in one of the ten priority states, or the work must be authentically national and scalable. A local project outside those states, dressed up as “national,” rarely survives review.
• Vague outcomes. “Improving maternal health” without a named disparity, population, and metric reads as unfunded good intentions. Be specific and measurable.
• Ignoring the RFP. The downloadable RFP is the real rulebook. Skipping it means missing required attachments, formats, or questions — an avoidable way to weaken an otherwise strong application.
• Anchoring on a dollar figure. The Foundation sets amounts based on need and plan. Build an honest budget rather than reverse-engineering a number from press releases.
• Last-minute submission. Portal problems near a deadline are common and preventable. Give yourself margin.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the 2026 deadline? Applications for the Maternal/Infant Health program are due July 31, 2026.

How much can we request? The Foundation does not publish a fixed range; it sets funding levels based on demonstrated need and the plan you present. Grants generally last one to three years.

Who can apply? Registered U.S. 501(c)(3) public charities whose work addresses maternal and infant health across the preconception-to-postpartum continuum.

Do we have to be in a specific state? Local programs must be based in California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Texas, or Virginia. National programs that promote scalable, systemic change are also eligible regardless of state.

How do we apply? Review the program page, download the Maternal/Infant Health RFP, watch the grantseeker webinar, and submit your application through the Benevity portal before the deadline.

Are the Food as Medicine and Behavioral Health programs open in 2026? Based on the Foundation’s grantseeker information, those programs are slated to accept applications in 2027; Maternal/Infant Health is the program with an active 2026 deadline.

Official Links and Next Steps

Start at the Foundation’s Maternal/Infant Health program page: https://elevancehealth.foundation/maternal-infant-health, and the broader grantseeker hub at elevancehealth.foundation/for-grantseekers. From there, download the current RFP, watch the webinar, review the FAQs, and confirm your organization meets the 501(c)(3) and geographic requirements before opening the Benevity application.

If you are an eligible nonprofit closing real disparities in maternal and infant health — whether through a national, scalable model or on-the-ground work in one of the priority states — the July 31, 2026 cycle is a substantive, multi-year funding opportunity from a well-resourced health-sector funder. Because deadlines, priorities, and eligibility can change from cycle to cycle, confirm the current details on the official page before you submit.