Essentia Health renews critical funding for infant and early childhood mental health

Essentia Health has awarded $25,000 to help support the Thrive Initiative, focused on improving infant and early childhood mental health for young children and their families. 

Thrive provides a critical forum for learning and connections across more than 90 organizations, including county/tribal public health and social services, family-serving nonprofits, mental health and health care, early care and education programs, and others. With ongoing support from Essentia, Thrive has delivered extensive training and piloted programs that have since been embedded into community organizations.

“Essentia Health has long been and is today an outstanding partner,” said Tony Sertich, President, Northland Foundation. “Their support has enabled increased reach and impact across our shared rural region.”

The Northland Foundation and Essentia Health (then the Duluth Clinic) began collaborating back in 1991 to build healthy communities and improve the quality of life for people of all ages, including support for community grants, youth leadership programming, and early care and education training.

Butler Family Foundation commits additional grantmaking support over the next two years

The Patrick & Aimee Butler Family Foundation is providing funding of $100,000 over the next two years, matched dollar-for-dollar by the Northland Foundation, for grant support to nonprofit organizations working in prevention and intervention services related to domestic and sexual violence and sex trafficking in Northeast Minnesota.

Since 2014, the Butler Family Foundation has generously awarded $575,000 in pass-through funds to the Northland Foundation. With $454,500 in match and additional dollars contributed by Northland, more than $1 million in resources has been made available to support prevention and intervention programming in the region. The timing for this latest support from Butler could not be better.

“There has been an uptick in both the number and severity of incidents of domestic violence reported during the pandemic,” stated Erik Torch, Director of Grantmaking at the Northland Foundation, “so this new infusion of funding to strengthen grantmaking in our rural region is greatly needed and appreciated.”

Grant seekers can learn more about Northland Foundation’s grant program and priorities on our website.