Mission & Values

The Mat-Su Health Foundation offers financial and strategic support to well-managed 501(c)(3) organizations that offer services and practical solutions to significant health-related problems impacting the citizens of the Mat-Su Borough. Some of our grant programs are open year-round, while others open for specific time periods. Please review our grant guidelines to see if your organization might be qualified to apply for funding. You may also review our searchable grants database to see the types of grants we have awarded in the past.

What We’re Striving For

Mission: To improve the health and wellness of Alaskans living in the Mat-Su.

Vision: A community where all persons have the opportunity for a healthy life.

Long-term Goal: By 2030, the Mat-Su Borough is the healthiest borough in Alaska through better care, healthier people, lower costs and happier providers.

Mid-Term Goal: By 2025, Mat-Su residents thrive in a more connected and supportive community and have improved outcomes on key drivers of health within the five focus areas.

Short-Term Goal:  By 2023, the Mat-Su will demonstrate measurable progress in the following areas for all Mat-Su residents:

• A more connected, supportive, welcoming community
• Equitable COVID-19 recovery
• Improved racial and other disparities on key drivers of health
• Health reform efforts shifting stakeholders from volume to value
• Coordinated systems of community-based services.

Values

The Mat-Su Health Foundation Board of Directors recognizes that what we value largely governs what we do, why we do it and how we do it. The values we embrace are manifested in our daily actions, decision-making, relationship norms, and even grant guidelines. These values define how we interact with Mat-Su residents with whom we work, live and play. To this end, the MSHF Board of Directors embraces the following values as the foundation of our efforts:

• Our Mat-Su Community Assets—
  • Families
  • A complete continuum of care
  • Strong, sustainable nonprofits
  • Wellness infrastructure
  • Mat-Su Regional Medical Center
• Prevention—focusing energy and resources to responses that address root causes rather than symptoms.
• Access—to health and wellness care for all Mat-Su citizens, particularly children, seniors and rural residents.
• Wellness—the active process of becoming aware of and assuming responsibility for the quality of one’s life individually and in community.
• Fairness—the demonstration of honesty, transparency and accountability in our relationships, governance, and stewardship and the assurance of equal access and respect to all Mat-Su populations and sponsored programs.
• Equity—when every person has the opportunity to attain his or her full human potential (physically, intellectually, socially and spiritually) and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other socially determined circumstances or systemic and institutional barriers.
• Collaboration—working with community partners to realize common goals by sharing knowledge, learning, resources and authority.
• Leadership—providing the vision, energy and resources to mobilize stakeholders to find responsive, innovative, strategic and evidenced-based means to improve the health and wellness of Mat-Su residents.

Definitions

Health – Complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity

Wellness – A healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit that results in an overall feeling of well-being

Wellbeing – A good or satisfying condition of existence, a state characterized by health, happiness and prosperity (quality of life).

Our Focus Areas

We concentrate our work in five main focus areas: Healthy Aging, Healthy Families, Healthy Minds, Healthy Foundation and Healthy Futures.