The Humana Foundation established in 1981 as the philanthropic arm of Humana Inc., one of the U.S.A.'s leading health benefits companies in Louisville, supports and nurtures charitable activities that promote healthy lives and healthy communities in the belief that improved health and education provide the greatest opportunities for individual and societal growth. They have thus placed confidence in people and their capacity to change for the better. They recognize the power of technology and immediately useful information to effect change. Humana believes in effective, passionate, capable and innovative leaders believing that through them wonderful things can happen. Humana also embraces health as a balanced state of well-being, recognizing an interrelationship between mind, body and spirit. These three represent vital ways through which communities could be renewed as outlined below:
Mind - projects or educational institutions that promote academic achievement and improvement in education.(31%)
Body - projects or human service agencies engaged in the promotion of healthy bodies and healthy lifestyles(41%)
Spirit - projects or civic and cultural development organizations that seek to inspire communities and enliven the spirit.(28%)
The Humana Foundation supports organizations that improve the quality of life in the communities where Humana has a meaningful presence. Humana and The Humana Foundation made 420 grants to nonprofit organizations in its headquarter's city of Louisville and other communities where the company has a meaningful presence in 2006 with attention given to the three priority areas outlined above according to the percentages in brackets. Total contributions in 2006 came up to $7.8 million.
Humana and The Foundation make a difference through volunteerism, health education, funding for the arts, educational scholarships, disaster relief, and more.
The Humana Foundation donates millions of dollars each year to non-profit organizations in the markets where it does business. Following the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it pledged $1 million for disaster relief in the Gulf Coast region
o The Foundation immediately donated $500,000 to the American Red Cross with an additional $500,000 set aside for long-term recovery efforts.
o The Foundation also matched employee gifts that totaled $300,000.
o With the employee match, the total Humana response was $1.6 million for Katrina Relief.
In partnership with four other Foundations,it distributed funding to a number of agencies with the primary focus of rebuilding the health services infrastructure and reducing reliance upon emergency rooms as a source of primary care.
David Jones Sr., former CEO and chair of the board of directors is leading the City of Parks initiative in Louisville to acquire land to expand parks throughout Louisville. He raised over $20 million for this effort in 2005 and 2006 through his personal fundraising efforts. In February 2005, the Trust for Public Land and Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson announced a $20 million initiative spearheaded by the community fundraising efforts of Humana Co-founder and Chairman Emeritus David A. Jones. The funds will be used for continued land purchases that will transform Metro Louisville to a "City of Parks." to which The Humana Foundation contributed $1.25 million.
Hundreds of school children at Rockdale Paideia Academy celebrated the Cincinnati launch of T.A.T.U. - Teens Against Tobacco Use - a program made possible in Cincinnati through a partnership between the American Lung Association and ChoiceCare/Humana. During the kickoff event, students symbolically extinguished the world's tallest cigarette (50') by deflating it, making it collapse in seconds. Also featured were former Cincinnati Bengal Mike Martin, a performance by the Ropin' Rockets (jump-rope team) and a dramatic skit and rap song carrying anti-tobacco messages.
T.A.T.U. developed by the American Lung Association as part of its Smoke-Free Class of 2000.is funded in nine major cities by the Humana Foundation. Tthe T.A.T.U. program - under the American Lung Association and Humana Foundation partnership. T.A.T.U. uses a "kids helping kids" approach to teach elementary school children about the dangers of tobacco use. First, adult volunteers are trained to work with teenagers. The teens, in turn, will teach younger students the truth about tobacco and how children are often targeted with sophisticated marketing campaigns by tobacco companies. Research shows that teens are eager to talk to younger children while this younger age group respects and listens to teens.
Humana is thus becoming more involved in volunteer activities. This process of developing and refining volunteerism, it hopes, will benefit associates and enrich leadership at Humana as well as impact communities across the U.S.A.
They participated in United Way's Day of Caring and worked on a Habitat for Humanity house constructed by Humana associates.
The Humana Foundation has chosen Libraries for the Future to partner in the Foundation's new signature project. The Wellness Information Zone Project takes a "high tech, high touch" approach to helping the public find essential and reliable health information. Features include trained librarians, a new health information Website, Wellness Information Centers in public libraries and nonprofit organizations, and Humana associates volunteering as Wellness Information Guides.
The Humana Foundation's $750,000 challenge grant to Louisville's Metro United Way (MUW) campaign created excitement for reaching the community fund-raising goal with additional enthusiasm resulting from the innovative leadership of CEO Mike McCallister as community chair of the 2006 MUW campaign.The campaign reached its goal of $30 million which was to be distributed to about 160 nonprofit agencies in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Foundation staff worked with MUW leadership to distribute $60,000 in "impact grants" in 2006. Allocation of funds focused upon projects that provide services for area senior citizens. ElderServe, GuardiaCare, New Directions Housing, Legal Aid Society, Jewish Family and Vocational Services were amongst those who received grants as part of this worthwhile program:
In April 2006, The Humana Foundation pledged $500,000 to the James Graham Brown Cancer Center's Wendell Cherry Institute for Clinical Trials in memory of Humana's co-founder. The Commonwealth of Kentucky Research Challenge Trust Fund (also known as Bucks for Brains) is matching the gift for a total contribution of $1 million to create The Humana Foundation Professorship in Clinical Trial Research. Humana's Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus David A. Jones and his wife also donated $1 million to the Cherry Institute for Clinical Trials.
Organizations in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana received grants, including the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center in Baton Rouge. With its funding, the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center is providing early-detection screenings to underserved areas in Southeast Louisiana, including FEMA trailer villages.
o Tampa - The Centre for Women received $100,000 to build a suite to train individuals in basic construction skills for the nonprofit's Senior Home Improvement Program. Tampa became the fifth city to participate in Humana's Our Community Benefits Program in 2006.
o Houston - SIRE, Houston's Therapeutic Equestrian Center, improves the quality of life for people with disabilities using horseback riding and related activities.
o Michigan - Crossroads of Michigan, the winner in the Detroit market, is equipping and furnishing a Sunday Soup Kitchen at its new location.
o Chicago - City-Wide Tax Assistance Program (TAP) enables the working poor to claim tax credits and refunds as well as overcome barriers to mainstream financial resources.
o Atlanta - Trees Atlanta is establishing an urban forestry program to help create programs and exhibits for a new environmental education center.
The Humana Foundation is also engaged in promoting art and culture. A steady and constant area for support is the annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. This partnership with Actors Theatre of Louisville which began its signature sponsorship of the annual Humana Festival of New American Plays in 1979 is the longest partnership between a corporation and a theater in the United States which in 2006 celebrated its 30th anniversary.The Business Committee for the Arts then honored Humana on November 8, 2006, in New York City . Humana has provided the festival with more than $16.4 million since it started. From thgen it quickly rose to an annual site of pilgrimage where more than 20,000 theatre lovers from around the world converge every year to see new plays from emerging and established playwrights and get the first look at the future of the American theater. Over 300 Humana Festival plays have been produced, representing the work of 206 playwrights. More than 90 million people worldwide have seen additional productions of the many plays originated in the Humana Festival. Film audiences have seen Humana plays adapted for the screen.
The Humana Foundation has received much recognition for such outstanding work.:
- two national awards for its support of the Humana Festival of New American Plays
-and the Humana Romanian Assistance Project.for Humana's long-term commitment to the arts, especially
so the annual Humana Festival of New American Plays
The Council on Foundations, a Washington, D.C.-based membership organization of more than 2,000 grantmaking foundations, gave it its "Critical Impact Award" for the foundation's efforts to transform Romania's health care system through the Romanian Assistance Project.. Humana and Baylor Health Care System in Dallas, Texas, provide funding and management for the project, which began in 1990 when former President George H. W. Bush asked American businesses to assist the newly emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, which had been damaged by Communism.
The project offers training programs for Romanian medical professionals and donates equipment, supplies and technical literature.The University of Louisville's Division of International Pediatrics is an outgrowth of this. The division received a $4 million boost in April 2006. Two $1 million donations, one from The Humana Foundation and another from David and Betty Jones, attracted equal funding from Kentucky's Bucks for Brains program. The Foundation gift will create a program endowment, while the gift from the Jones is developing a new endowed chair for the division.In September 2006, David Jones published The Dacian Chronicles: Transforming the Romanian Health System, 1990-2006. The Foundation distributed copies to hundreds of Romanian Assistance Project volunteers and participants at celebrations in Romania and Louisville, Kentucky.
The Humana Foundation has also been chosen as recipient of the 2007 Corporate Funder Award from the Theatre Communications Group, a New York City-based organization that works to promote nonprofit American theater.
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