What’s New in August
Welcome to the first iteration of Cadence Advisory's newsletter.
Each month, I'll drop a few hundred words on the current nonprofit funding landscape, including global health and development and US-based social services, along with anything I find interesting coming out of my ongoing work.
I'll also provide a few open calls I'm tracking, funder profiles, and some tools, processes, or workflows I'm finding especially promising.
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What We're Interested In
What's new in August? I'm tracking three big pieces of news.
1) The ongoing mystery that is the State Department. Devex quotes the current head of the Global Health Security and Diplomacy Bureau, Jeffery Graham, as saying that State wants more diverse contractors, including local NGOs. Yet every award I've seen is a sole source to an international NGO or an extension of a legacy USAID award. Will the State Department figure out how to get money to local organizations? I'm personally optimistic, but not hopeful.
2) What's new in philanthropy? That sound is the return of the randomistas and the GiveWell-ification of the entire space. Coefficient Giving recently announced a $1 billion donation to GiveWell, unsurprising given the institutional connections between the two. In my career, I've mostly worked on things that couldn't be well measured (how does one attribute health outcomes to improved meeting processes?). For years, I welcomed this way of thinking to the discussion, including giving money to GiveWell and GiveDirectly, as a bulwark against my biases. And yet, it feels like the pendulum has completely swung that direction, and away from governance, financing, and data systems. If only we'd figured out the cost-effectiveness of citizen engagement in 2015 like we wanted to...
3) Rural health marches on. Pennsylvania recently announced that they were limiting competition on their EHR funding to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). FQHCs have broad appeal and bipartisan support, with clear rules and requirements, so while these set-asides aren't surprising, it's the first one I've seen. FQHCs, not nonprofits, will likely be the big winners of RHTP funding, while Medicaid cuts harm their bottom line from a different side. Navigating a new funding mix is never easy. Arizona is the next one of these I'm tracking, with about $40 million in the pipeline to drive innovative care and financing, likely to figure out how to absorb Medicaid cuts.
Anticipated Funding Opportunities
Global Health
Butterfield Memorial Foundation's International Whole Person Healthcare grant. Deadline August 15, 2026, an LOI process posted through Butterfield's grant portal. Funds Christian nonprofit organizations expanding healthcare access for underserved international populations, including indigenous communities. Organizations with a faith-based identity and an active international health program have a real, near-term shot at this one.
Domestic Health
Pennsylvania's FQHC EHR set-aside. $1.8 million total, capped at $300,000 per organization, funds Federally Qualified Health Centers and FQHC Look-Alikes adopting certified electronic health record systems and joining the state's health information exchange, per Pennsylvania DHS. More states will roll out RHTP set-asides like this one, and FQHCs need help identifying and applying for them as they land.
Title X Family Planning Services Grants. Deadline January 9, 2027, posted on Grants.gov. Recurring federal funding for family planning services, open to a wide range of health and human services providers. Title X has held steady through multiple administrations, which makes it a dependable base for clients building a broader funding strategy around reproductive and family health.
Domestic Social Services
Start Small LLC. Jack Dorsey's philanthropic vehicle, startsmall.llc, funds general operating support and program grants from $25,000 up into eight figures, with a focus on girls' health and education, universal basic income, and community services. It accepts unsolicited funding requests, and past grants have gone to community organizations with no prior relationship to Dorsey. Even one of the largest individual donors in the country is backing unrestricted, operational funding over tightly scoped project grants, which is a major shift toward recognizing the actual needs of nonprofits.
Foundation of the Month
Segal Family Foundation (Warren, New Jersey). This family foundation holds $118 million in assets and has made 645 international grants across 25 countries, concentrated heavily in East Africa. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Rwanda account for the bulk of their giving, both by dollar amount and by number of grants.
Their grantmaking dropped 43% between 2023 and 2025, from $22.9 million to $13 million. Know that before you approach them with an ask sized to their old giving level.
Recent grants include $204,000 to Fundi Bots in Uganda for STEM education, $110,000 to Lwala Community Alliance for community health work in Kenya, and $115,000 to Gardens for Health International for nutrition programming in Rwanda. The median grant lands around $100,000, and it goes almost entirely to locally led, grassroots organizations working directly in the countries they serve.
Segal is a foundation to know if your organization is led from, and works in, East Africa. If you're a US-based organization implementing through partners on the ground, look elsewhere first. Ask yourself who actually runs your programs day to day, and where do they live? Segal wants that answer to be a name and a place.
