Aetna Foundation FAQs

We focus our grant making on issues that improve health and the health care system and that aim to help low-income, vulnerable and medically underserved people live healthier lives. Learn more about our Regional Grants and National Grants.

Currently, we only accept unsolicited proposals for our Regional Grants Program, and these proposals must be submitted through our online system. The Aetna Foundation may, on occasion, solicit proposals that fall outside of the regional focus and/or geographic area. These strategic opportunities are staff-identified, solicited and developed. Invitations to submit proposals will be issued at the discretion of the Aetna Foundation.

As of August 15, 2012, we no longer accept unsolicited requests for funding through our National Grants Program. Instead, we develop projects directly with targeted nonprofit organizations. On occasion, we issue specific Requests for Proposals to groups whose work closely aligns with our funding priorities.

We are not accepting unsolicited sponsorship proposals at this time.

While we do fund projects outside of the United States, requests for funding for such projects are by invitation only. We are not accepting unsolicited proposals for international projects at this time.

As of September 16, our 2013 Regional Grants Program is closed. Please continue to visit our website for program updates.

We are not accepting unsolicited proposals for projects outside of our priority locations at this time. Funding for projects outside of these locations is by invitation only.

We support nonprofit organizations with evidence of IRS 501(c)(3) designation or de facto tax-exempt status. You will need your tax identification number to enter our online application system. Please refer to the Aetna Foundation’s General Funding Guidelines for additional information.

We encourage all applicants to submit their application packages as early as possible in advance of the program close date to avoid last-minute complications, or submission issues.  If the foundation receives an excessive volume of submissions in the final month of the open program period, funding decisions may carry over into the following year.

You may save an application you start and finish it later. You will need to re-enter the online portal to do this.  Log in with the e-mail address and password you used to create the application. You will see a list of your organization's applications. Click on the one you need to finish.

No. If you need to add or change information, contact us.

Proposals missing required information or supporting documentation may be declined without a formal review.

After you click the Submit button, you will receive an e-mail confirming that we received your application. You also will see it listed under "Submitted Applications" when you log in to the online portal.

Note: Our confirmation e-mails and other communications from  our online submission software are sometimes routed as SPAM.  To avoid missed communications, please add the Aetna Foundation and SalesForce, the name of the database management platform, to your contact list or electronic address book. And check your SPAM folder periodically.

These are overhead expenses that relate to overall operations or are shared among projects or functions.  Examples include accounting, grants management, legal services, insurance, utilities, facilities or any other costs incurred by the applicant organization as part of its daily general operations or expenses of doing business.

We support up to15% of indirect costs as described above. We do not make grants designed solely to fund operational expenses or the regular business of our grantees.

No more than 20% of an organization's overall annual budget can be supported by an Aetna Foundation grant.

Yes. As part of the application, you will be asked to list all confirmed and potential funding sources.