Frequently Asked Questions

WHO IS AMY WELLNESS FOUNDATION?

The AMY (Avery, Mitchell, Yancey) Wellness Foundation includes community members from Avery, Mitchell and Yancey county working together alongside local nonprofits in the eastern region of Western North Carolina. Promoting positive change to the health and wellness of our community, AMY Wellness Foundation supports nonprofits and the community at large to address the highest needs of our community.

HOW ARE YOU PROMOTING INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY WITHIN YOUR ORGANIZATION?

The AMY Wellness Foundation is focused on inclusion of all community members regardless of age, race, gender, identity, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status. We will maintain this mantra within Board member assembly, distribution of funds, employee hires and community involvement.

WHEN IS YOUR Next GRANT CYCLE?

AMY Wellness Foundation will be moving to quarterly grant cycles. Applications will be accepted on the following schedule: 

Cycle one – open 1/1/2023 – 3/31/2023 

Cycle two – open 4/1/2023 – 6/30/2023

Cycle three – open 7/1/2023 – 9/30/2023

Cycle four – open 10/1/2023 – 12/31/2023

Decisions and funding will be distributed 30-45 days after each cycle closes.

 You can find out about our funding opportunities and health areas of interest on our Grants Page.

WHO IS YOUR BOARD COMPRISED OF?

Our board is comprised of representatives from each county that we serve – Avery, Mitchell, and Yancey. You can find their names and bios here.

WHERE ARE YOU LOCATED?

Our office is located at 31 Cross St, Spruce Pine, NC.

WHAT ARE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH?

Social Determinants of Health are conditions in which people live, learn, work and play that affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes. Visit the CDC website to learn more.

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AMY WELLNESS FOUNDATION AND THE DOGWOOD TRUST? ARE GRANT AWARD DECISIONS AFFECTED BY OR PART OF THIS RELATIONSHIP?

AMY Wellness Foundation is a completely independent organization. While our visions align on supporting Social Determinates of Health, there is no formal relationship between AMY and Dogwood Health Trust (DHT) currently. Our focus area is Avery, Mitchell and Yancey counties. DHT will support western North Carolina as a whole. No grant making decisions will be impacted by relationships with other organizations.

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AMY WELLNESS AND OTHER EXISTING COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, AGENCIES, OR NONPROFITS?

Our goal is to collaborate with organizations and individuals who share our vision of health and wellness. This could be in the form of grant partnerships, capacity building or regional connectivity work. We encourage collaboration to ensure we are all operating at our best to uplift the communities we support. We believe that in order to move the needle and create lasting change we must leverage partnerships and work to collaborate. AMY is not a Foundation that aims to solely disburse funds, we provide much more to the community other than funding opportunities. Our three-pronged model of regional connectivity, capacity building, and grant making encourages collaboration to inclusively transform our community.

IS THERE A SPECIFIC CONSISTENT PROCESS FOR MAKING GRANT AWARD DECISIONS?

Our Board of Directors reviews and scores every application that is submitted within the guidelines of our RFP. These applications are first reviewed individually by each Board member. Subsequently, the full Board convenes to make final decisions on awardees and funding amounts. Collaboration is not necessary but is encouraged. Agencies may apply for individual organizational needs on their own and also apply separately in a collaborative application. Please visit our Grants page for information.

ARE QUESTIONS OR CONVERSATIONS ABOUT POSSIBLE APPLICATIONS OR DIRECTIONS APPROPRIATELY HELD WITH STAFF OR BOARD MEMBERS?

Our staff and Board of Directors are always available to answer questions about our Grant process and RFPs. We also host several workshops prior to, during and after each grant cycle. Visit our Capacity Building page to learn more.

WHO CAN APPLY FOR GRANTS? 501(c)3? 501(c)4? STATE OR COUNTY AGENCIES? COMMUNITY GROUPS WITHOUT AN IRS STATUS?

Our main priority is to invest in our communities. We do that by partnering with nonprofits, governmental agencies, and other organizations who share our mission of transforming health and wellness through preventative, up-stream, innovative and collaborative efforts. We are not able to give funds to individuals and our Board has voted to only fund organizations with a physical presence in Avery, Mitchell, or Yancey counties. However, we don’t want to exclude anyone. We encourage organizations outside of our three counties to partner with a local and established organizations in our region who can take on the fiscal agent role.

WHAT IS "LIVED EXPERIENCE"? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT, VALUABLE, AND RELEVANT TO AMY's WORK AND PROCESS?

“Lived experience” is a term we use to describe people who have a direct personal experience with real word issues that have been perpetuated by broken systems. It is important to our organization that we understand the health areas we are supporting and how we are impacting our the people we aim to serve. We can only do that by partnering with people from all walks of life. This includes organizations who provide direct client services, their clients, individuals that are not often reached by organizations, elected officials, youth, family, friends, colleagues – you name it! As we build roots in the community we hope to reach as many individuals and listen to their perspectives so that we can do work to address their needs. In the summer of 2020, we will be holding listening sessions to target specific groups and learn more about the needs of our neighbors.

WHAT IS AN "OUTCOME" AND WHAT KIND OF OUTCOMES Is AMY LOOKING FOR?

We measure our outcomes based on the result we intend to achieve; improving the health of our three-county region. AMY is committed to population accountability and we encourage organizations to be results-based oriented as well through performance accountability. This means avoiding measuring community success based on who wins in a grant process and continuing to measure success based on how our community is progressing to help our neighbors meet basic human needs. To learn more about the Results-Based Accountability model that we use visit: raguide.org

IS THIS A COMPETITIVE GRANT PROCESS OR IS COLLABORATION ENCOURAGED?

AMY’s model puts an emphasis on collaboration over competition. We believe that working together (when it makes sense) is vital to impacting change. We want to see collaboration when its number one focus is to help address health disparities more effectively and equitably.