Areas of Interest
Vision
People in the City and County of San Francisco live long, healthy lives.
Mission
The mission of Metta Fund is to improve health in the City and County of San Francisco.
This is achieved by:
- conducting strategic and responsive grantmaking
- supporting effective programs focusing on intervention, prevention, wellness, and health education
- strengthening community-based nonprofit organizations
- developing strategic community partnerships
Metta Fund's Unique Role
Our unique role in San Francisco is to:
- Provide independent health philanthropy leadership in the community
- Leverage our financial assets with the resources of others to achieve our mission
To achieve this, we:
- Communicate – share the results of our work and the work of our grantees
- Convene – bring different groups together with a shared agenda
- Coordinate – collaborate with other funders
- Connect – help our grantees leverage our grants
- Count – monitor progress and gauge impact
- Cash – make effective grants
Values and Principles
- We strive to stay abreast of changing community profiles and needs through involvement with, research of and listening to a wide and diverse range of City and County constituents.
- Our constituency includes all residents of San Francisco.
- We fund early intervention, wellness, and health education programs to reduce disease burdens.
- Our strategy is based on our mission and our understanding of our community. It establishes and guides our funding priorities. This strategy is evaluated every year to ensure that it continues to meet San Francisco’s most significant needs.
- Metrics are assigned to and monitored for all grantmaking programs.
- Our decisions are made based upon evidence and impact to the community, and exclude conflicts of interest.
Metta Fund Strategic Objectives
Metta Fund has a new grantmaking strategy for 2012 – 2014. The strategy contains the following elements:
General Operating Support Grants
Work towards improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of individual health and human service agencies and organizations.
Impact Grants
Support organizations’ use of data to guide and assess their work.
Institutional Partner Grants
Identify and implement high quality, evidence-based projects.
Healthy Neighborhood Grants
Assess and implement neighborhood-based strategies aimed at improving physical activity, healthful eating and other positive lifestyle changes.
Summer Camp Grants
Provide tuition assistance for financially-disadvantaged youth to attend high-quality summer camps.
Innovation Awards
Help implement innovative, proven concepts or help seed new ideas.

