Based on the six principles outlined in the Strategic Plan, The SCAN Foundation has identified the following three funding priorities to guide its grantmaking from 2009 through 2013:

  1. Funding Priority 1: Public Engagement

    Elevate the establishment of a comprehensive continuum of care for seniors as a national priority, and as a state priority for California. more >

  2. Funding Priority 2: Policy Development

    Advance realistic policy options to establish and finance a comprehensive continuum of care for seniors. more >

  3. Funding Priority 3: Programs

    Support the dissemination and assessment of promising new program models that could inform and strengthen long-term care policy development. more >


Rationale for the Funding Priorities

A genuine opportunity exists to reform long-term care: the emergence of two potentially powerful groups who are personally experiencing the many inadequacies of the nation’s long-term care system. The first is the growing number of baby boomers who are now caring for their aging parents and relatives, or struggling to arrange for their care. The second group is the older seniors themselves. The Foundation believes that these two groups can be mobilized into a powerful constituency in support of long-term care reform.

The first step—and the Foundation’s first funding priority—is to elevate the issue of long-term care so that it becomes a high priority for policymakers. To do this, and to help foster the political will necessary for meaningful reform to occur, the Foundation will explore why long-term care reform is not considered a pressing political issue and how best to frame and talk about long-term care reform so that it attracts the attention that it merits.

Policy makers also need concrete policy options on which to act. Providing them with realistic policy options is the Foundation’s second funding priority.

As its third funding priority, The SCAN Foundation will advance promising new models for the delivery of a continuous continuum of care for seniors. This will keep the Foundation grounded in the realities of long-term care delivery and the door open to innovative ways of delivering services. It is, in effect, the research and development component of the Foundation’s work, and will take place primarily in California. The results of these demonstrations will feed into and reinforce the Foundation’s two policy priorities.

Carrying out this ambitious agenda will most likely require more resources than The SCAN Foundation has at its disposal. Consequently, it will seek opportunities to collaborate with other funders.

 
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