The Community Health Foundation is dedicated to improving the health and health care of the people and communities of western and central New York.  Find out in this section about how we evolved, what we believe and the people who make the foundation work.

Now in our early years of operation, we’re committed to creating opportunities for long-term program improvement and partnerships with our communities. We issued our first request for proposals in September 2003 and made our first grants in April 2004.

Based in Buffalo, N.Y., with a second office in Syracuse, we serve the following counties:

Western New York		Central New York
Allegany Cattaraugus Chautauqua Erie Genesee Niagara Orleans Wyoming		Cayuga Cortland Herkimer Madison Oneida Onondaga Oswego Tompkins

With an endowment that will eventually approach $100 million, the foundation has a responsibility to foster and support projects that will make a difference in our regions’ healthcare outcomes.

CHF has an allocation formula for its spending targets between the Western and Central New York regions that relates to:

1)     the asset value that each of the original regional HMO partners brought to their merger when they were purchased by Excellus BlueCross/BlueShield; and

2)     the relative populations of the two eight county areas.

The allocation formula produces a spending ratio of slightly more than 2:1 for the Western New York region compared to the Central New York region.

The Board of Trustees has the authority to make exceptions to this allocation or to waive the application of it for particular projects.