Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Should You Go After Their Grants?

By Culbreath Ashanti—360FundingForge

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is the giant in health philanthropy. It’s the largest U.S. foundation focused solely on health, with billions in assets and hundreds of millions in grants going out each year.

That makes it very tempting to say, “We should definitely apply.”
But big funder ≠ good fit.

This article walks you through:

What RWJF actually cares about
The kinds of projects they tend to fund
How their grant programs work in practice
Whether your organization is realistically a match
What to do next (including how 360FundingForge can help you find RWJF and RWJF-like opportunities)

1. Who RWJF Is and What They’re Trying to Do

RWJF was established in 1972 with a major bequest of Johnson & Johnson stock from former CEO Robert Wood Johnson. Today it’s a national philanthropy with very large assets and hundreds of millions in annual grantmaking.

Their overarching vision: build a “Culture of Health”—a United States where health is not a privilege but a right, and where everyone has a fair and just opportunity to live a healthy life.

RWJF’s work centers on four major focus areas:

Health Systems

Transforming healthcare and public health systems so they’re equitable, community-connected, and focused on prevention—not just treatment.

Healthy Communities

Improving the conditions where people live, learn, work, and play (housing, transportation, environment, public safety, etc.) so that communities themselves become engines of health.

Healthy Children and Families

Supporting early childhood development, family supports, and efforts to prevent problems like childhood obesity and toxic stress, so kids can thrive physically, socially, and emotionally.

Leadership for Better Health

Developing cross-sector leaders—inside government, healthcare, education, business, and community organizations—who can build and sustain a national Culture of Health.

Quick self-check: you’re more likely to be a good fit if:

You’re explicitly working on health equity, not just “health” in general
Your work connects to systems, policies, or environments (not only direct services)
You can frame your work as part of building a Culture of Health in your community

2. What Kinds of Opportunities RWJF Offers

RWJF doesn’t operate like a small local foundation with one annual cycle. Instead, it runs multiple, often highly targeted programs and RFPs, mostly in the U.S.

Here are some of the flagship opportunities you’ll see (program names and details can change over time, but the patterns stay similar):

a) Health Policy & Leadership Programs

Health Policy Fellows
A prestigious fellowship for mid-career health professionals and social/behavioral scientists who want to work at the federal policy level. Fellows spend time in Washington, D.C., placed within congressional or executive branch offices, learning the policymaking process from the inside.

Roughly up to six fellows per year
Substantial financial support per fellow over the fellowship period
Meant for individuals already established in their fields who want to influence national health policy

RWJF also backs broader leadership initiatives like Culture of Health Leaders, which develops cross-sector leaders committed to transforming systems and communities.

b) Research to Advance Health Equity

Evidence for Action (E4A): Innovative Research to Advance Racial Equity
This program funds research that examines how policies, systems, and structures create or dismantle health inequities—especially those rooted in racism and intersecting forms of disadvantage (class, immigration status, disability, gender identity, etc.).

Key characteristics:

Rolling applications
Grant durations up to about 36 months
Supports rigorous quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods studies
Focused on upstream drivers of health (laws, policies, institutional practices), not just downstream treatment

c) “Pioneering” / Futures-Focused Programs

Over time RWJF has run programs like Pioneering Ideas and more recent “equitable futures” initiatives. The idea is consistent: fund unconventional, forward-looking ideas that could radically advance health equity.

These programs tend to:

Prize novelty and big-picture thinking (future of work, food systems, social interaction, evidence, etc.)
Welcome applicants from nontraditional fields (tech, design, civic innovation, arts, etc.) as long as the work clearly ties back to health equity
Be more open to exploratory or early-stage ideas than some of RWJF’s more traditional research calls

d) What RWJF Typically Funds (Activities & Formats)

Across programs, RWJF commonly funds:

Planning and demonstration projects
Research and evaluations
Policy and statistical analysis
Learning networks and communities of practice
Public education and strategic communications
Community engagement and coalition building
Training and fellowship programs
Technical assistance and capacity building

If your project is strictly general operating support with no clear connection to systems change, policy, or structural determinants of health, RWJF is less likely to be a match.

3. How Big Is RWJF’s Giving—and Where Does It Go?

RWJF is huge by health-philanthropy standards:

Annual giving commonly reaches into the hundreds of millions of dollars
Its overall giving and average grant size have generally trended upward over the last several years
It has not been retrenching; if anything, it has leaned into its role in addressing COVID-19, racial injustice, and structural determinants of health

What Topics Get the Most Money?

The biggest chunk of RWJF’s portfolio goes to health and healthcare broadly defined—health systems, public health, and community conditions that shape health.

Within that, there is deep investment in:

Public and community health, linking hospitals, health departments, schools, planners, and community organizations
Longstanding priorities like childhood obesity prevention, smoking reduction, and access to care
Increasingly, racial equity and structural racism as core drivers of health outcomes

If your work sits completely outside health—for example, purely arts and culture with no health equity angle—you’ll have a very steep hill to climb.

4. Geography: Does Location Matter?

Yes—but maybe not in the way you think.

RWJF is national in scope and primarily funds work in the United States and U.S. territories.

They do have a special interest in New Jersey, their home state, with place-based initiatives and examples. But they fund projects across the country.

What this means for you:

If you’re working inside the U.S., you’re in-bounds
Being in or partnering in New Jersey can give you extra alignment, but it’s not required
Projects that have national relevance or strong potential for replication tend to fare better than purely hyper-local, one-off efforts

RWJF is known for long-term partnerships and multi-year grants. Many dollars go to organizations they’ve funded before—large universities, think tanks, national nonprofits, and multi-year initiatives.

So yes, they absolutely do fund new grantees, but:

Newcomers often need to bring something distinctive: a unique data set, community base, policy lever, or methodology
Strong collaborations with established institutions (universities, large nonprofits, health systems) can make your application more competitive
For early-stage, smaller organizations, RWJF is usually easier to access as a partner or sub-grantee in a larger project led by a more established entity

If your organization is tiny, fully local, and doesn’t yet have experience with research, evaluation, or systems change, RWJF is probably not your first “stretch” funder—though it can be a great long-term target.

6. Five Questions to Decide If RWJF Is a Good Fit

Use these as a mini self-assessment:

Mission Alignment
- Can you clearly articulate how your work advances health equity or a Culture of Health, not just “better health”?
Type of Work
- Are you working on systems, structures, or policies (e.g., housing, wages, policing, education policy, healthcare payment models) rather than only direct clinical services?
Scale & Evidence
- Can your work generate evidence, models, or lessons that others can adopt or that can influence policy? RWJF likes learnings that travel.
Partners & Capacity
- Do you have (or can you form) strong partnerships—with researchers, health systems, government agencies, or community coalitions?
Readiness for Complexity
- RWJF grants often come with expectations around learning, evaluation, and cross-sector collaboration. Are you prepared to manage that?

If you’re saying “yes” to most of these, RWJF might be worth serious pursuit. If most answers are “not really”, consider it a future goal and look for more accessible funders in the meantime.

7. Practical Steps to Pursue RWJF Funding

If you think there’s a solid fit, here’s how to move forward strategically:

Step 1: Scan Active Opportunities Carefully

Start on RWJF’s Funding & Research Opportunities page and browse current and upcoming RFPs.

Pay attention to:

Eligibility (who can apply)
Required disciplines or sectors
Expected project scale and duration
Specific focus (e.g., racial equity in housing policy vs general health access)

Step 2: Map Your Idea to RWJF Language

RWJF uses consistent conceptual language—Culture of Health, health equity, structural racism, systems change, community wisdom.

Reframe your idea in those terms:

What systems are you trying to change?
What structural barriers (laws, policies, institutional practices) are you addressing?
How are communities most affected by inequities actually involved in designing and leading the work?

Step 3: Strengthen Your Partnership Story

RWJF loves cross-sector collaborations—public health + community orgs + planners + schools + researchers, etc.

Before applying:

Identify research or evaluation partners (universities, research institutes, independent evaluators)
Build or formalize coalitions with community groups, health systems, or local government
Clarify who leads what, and how power and resources will be shared

Step 4: Start with the Right-Sized Ask

Not every RWJF project needs to be a multi-million-dollar, multi-year effort.

You might:

Pitch a discrete research study that fills a clear evidence gap
Propose a pilot or demonstration project with strong learning and scaling potential
Join a larger consortium as a community implementation partner rather than the prime applicant

8. If RWJF Isn’t a Match (Yet): Similar Health-Focused Funders

If—after an honest assessment—you conclude RWJF isn’t ideal right now, that’s actually a win: you’ve avoided pouring effort into a low-ROI proposal.

There are many other health- and equity-focused funders that might be a more accessible starting point, such as:

W.K. Kellogg Foundation – focus on children, families, and racial equity
Kresge Foundation – health, community development, and climate resilience
The Commonwealth Fund – health policy and health system performance
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation – clinical research, child well-being, and environmental issues
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – global and U.S. health equity, especially in specific disease areas and systems

Each has its own personality, priorities, and “sweet spots.” The trick is matching your work to the funder where it’s most likely to resonate.

9. Where 360FundingForge Fits In

Decoding mission language, reading between the lines of RFPs, scanning 990s, and analyzing ROI takes time you probably don’t have.

That’s exactly where 360FundingForge comes in.

Think of 360FundingForge as your one-stop shop for grant search and funder fit:

We help you quickly identify whether a big player like RWJF is truly worth pursuing right now
We surface comparable health and equity funders that align with your mission, geography, and capacity
We help you prioritize opportunities so you spend effort only where the odds—and potential impact—justify it
And when you’re ready, we support you in framing and positioning your ideas in the language top health funders expect

If you’re exploring whether the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (or funders like it) should be on your roadmap, reach out to 360FundingForge to get a curated list of high-ROI health equity funders and a strategy to approach them with confidence.