Deadline: 10/15/17

Amount: Unspecified. In general, the annual award disbursement from the funding agency will not exceed:

Eligibility: Eligible applicants are nonprofit organizations based in Colorado. The program officer stated only nonprofit organizations based in Colorado are eligible to apply, and projects must occur within the state for the benefit of Coloradans. New or emerging organizations without 501(c)(3) status may apply through a tax-exempt organization acting as a fiscal sponsor.

The purpose of this program is to support organizations seeking to improve health insurance literacy for all Coloradans. The funding agency seeks to achieve this goal by increasing opportunities for individuals to learn how to better understand and use health insurance. Rather than supporting health insurance enrollment, the goal of this initiative is to be responsive to community need while informing the funding agency as to how best to impact citizens’ health insurance literacy. For the purposes of this program, health insurance literacy is defined as the capacity to find and evaluate information about health plans, select the best plan given financial and health circumstances, and use the plan once enrolled.

Projects supported through this program should be responsive to community need and also inform key stakeholders in the health coverage community and the funding agency as to how best to impact Coloradans’ health insurance literacy. Funding will support new and innovative projects, as well as current activities that can be expanded or enhanced.

Priority will be given to projects that:

• Demonstrate local- or community-level partnerships with appropriate health care, coverage, or insurance organizations
• Demonstrate a pathway to sustainability, such as with a business plan
• Show the potential to achieve effectiveness with one or more target populations or communities

• Community-identified target populations with a demonstrated need, including low-income (generally below 200 percent of the federal poverty level), low-education (a high school degree, or equivalent, or less), “young invincibles” (18 to 34 years of age), and those speaking languages other than English
• Providing the right tools at the right time for the right people, such as creating online modules that teach a targeted population about health insurance at the best time for the subject to be learned
• Using and connecting networks to deliver health insurance literacy, such as adopting an existing enrollment referral network to provide health insurance literacy more effectively
• New and innovative projects that align with the goals of this program

• Projects that currently involve activities, either locally or nationally, that can be expanded or enhanced and have been shown to achieve the intended outcomes
• Projects that primarily focus on communication, evaluation, or private sector investments

• “Train the trainer” health literacy programs
• Community health navigator (or similar) projects with a primary focus on improving health insurance literacy
• Webinars or online curricula focused on health insurance literacy
• Online or digital tools relating to health insurance literacy on topics such as choice/decision making, utilization, or accessing care
• In-person health insurance literacy training or curricula
• Print or electronic health insurance literacy messaging efforts, such as a YouTube video series or text messaging programs