BCBS of Massachusetts Foundation Launches Community Mental-health Grant Program 

BOSTON — The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation recently announced the launch of the Advancing Community-Driven Mental Health grant program.  

The grant program will fund community-based organizations to improve access to community-based mental-health services for adults experiencing mild to moderate mental-health distress and practical problems of daily living. The grant program will equip staff members of community-based organizations to deliver mental-health support in the community focusing on teaching basic concepts and skills that enable individuals to address and deal with issues of immediate concern to them.  

This grant program will utilize a community-based intervention known as Problem Management Plus (PM+), which was developed by the World Health Organization as a low-intensity psychological intervention to address mental-health treatment gaps in low- and middle-income countries. 

In addition to grant funding, the program will provide training, technical assistance, coaching, implementation, and evaluation support to organizations that are interested in developing and implementing PM+ services within their organizations. 

This is a multi-year grant program (2023-25). The first year is a planning year with funding available up to $100,000 per organization. Years two and three are implementation years with funding available up to $150,000 yearly.  

Letters of inquiry are due at noon on Tuesday, Aug. 9 using the foundation’s online portal. To read the grant guidelines for more information, click here.