OVERVIEW: The Johnson & Johnson companies are numerous and spread throughout the world. Its charitable arm focuses its annual grantmaking on an array of international health and development causes. It supports expanding reproductive health services for women and girls, eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV and combating fistula. It also partners with organizations to combat communicable and noncommunicable diseases and to promote mental health.
IP TAKE: Johnson & Johnson is not a particularly approachable foundation, and its grantmaking policies are rather vague. Unfortunately, grantseekers who want Johnson & Johnson Foundation funding have to connect with company executives.
The Johnson & Johnson Foundation’s grantmaking budget is a bit unusual in that the bulk of its giving comprises in-kind donations, while a minority of giving results in the form of cash grants. Johnson & Johnson’s remaining non-cash giving goes toward private voluntary organizations engaged in medical work or disaster relief in the developing world. Additionally, many of the cash grants Johnson & Johnson does make are through its generous employee donation matching program. Nevertheless, the Johnson & Johnson Foundation manages to make a significant number of annual cash grants. Most of these are support for women and children, preventing disease, and strengthening the healthcare workforce.
PROFILE: The Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Johnson & Johnson, a multinational corporation that consists of around 250 operating companies around the world. The foundation aims to “[s]upport the people on the front lines at the heard of delivering care, so that communities and health systems have the ability to address the health needs of the world’s most vulnerable people.” Areas of funding interest include strengthening the healthcare workforce, empowering healthcare advocates and leaders, maternal and newborn health and using technology to transform healthcare delivery systems. The foundation is also dedicated to achieving the the United Nations Development Programme’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and gives widely to disaster relief, and refugee and humanitarian aid efforts.
Grants for Global and Public Health, Mental Health, and Diseases
The foundation’s support for Global Health focuses on HIV, Tuberculosis, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Mental Health, Pandemic Preparedness, Ebola, Global Surgery and Antimicrobial Resistance across the world. The foundation is particularly interested in “the development of new drug regimens, support[ing] the strengthening of healthcare systems and break[ing] down the barriers to access in resource-limited settings.” The foundation’s epidemic and pandemic work includes efforts to combat Ebola, ZIKA, H1N1, HIV, COVID-19, and other diseases. For more information about Johnson & Johnson’s research and relief efforts, look over its global health Fact Sheet.
The foundation also makes health grants through its Women and Children program, including for maternal and newborn health, fistula recovery, and ensuring women’s access to health care. The foundation is also dedicated to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include a health and well-being component.
Previous health projects and programs the foundation supports include $500 million over four years to combat the HIV and Ebola epidemics. Johnson & Johnson also partnered with the World Health Organization to provide 1.4 billion doses of an anti-parasite medication against STH, an infection caused by intestinal worms, and donated 700,000 doses of an ebola vaccine to the DRC and the Republic of Rwanda.
Grants for Global Development, Women and Girls
Johnson & Johnson’s Saving and Improving the Lives of Women and Children program broadly supports women’s health, education and employment, and anti-poverty initiatives. The foundation’s women’s health initiative largely involves maternal and newborn health. For example, it has partnered with UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO, The World Bank and U.N. Women to “train skilled birth attendants in emergency obstetric and newborn care to ensure better outcomes for more mothers and babies in Ethiopia and Tanzania.” It has also supported UNFPA, Fistula Foundation, CCBRT, Direct Relief International, One by One in Kenya, Mercy Ships, the International Society of Fistula Surgeons, Women and Health Alliance International and Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital to “prevent fistula through quality obstetric care, increased access to fistula repair surgery, and help to women with fistula reintegrate into their communities and regain control of their lives.”
Johnson & Johnson also funds efforts to combat poverty, and expand women’s access to education and employment in the developing world. As with all of its programs, health is at the center of the foundation’s support for women. Its anti-poverty work invests in integrated microfinance initiatives that “couple financial services with health education, health services or other development tools [that] can mitigate health risks to a microcredit client and her family.” Past grantees include Freedom From Hunger and Microcredit Summit. The foundation does not prioritize funding for education and employment initiatives for women to the same extent that it supports other women’s initiatives, primarily because it is more difficult to link these to health. However, it has supported the Improving Girls’ Secondary Education and Employment opportunities program in Tanzania, which provides “internships and mentoring for girls in seven secondary schools to help bridge the gap between school and employment, and continuing to support their professional development and vocation training in fields such as nursing, community health development, hotel management and teaching.”
Johnson & Johnson also supports efforts to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many of which overlap with the foundation’s women’s health and development initiatives.
Grants for Humanitarian Relief, Immigrants and Refugees
The foundation’s refugee grantmaking appears to be a new undertaking for Johnson & Johnson. At the height of the crisis, the foundation supported Save the Children’s efforts to provide humanitarian aid and long-term resilience training to Syrian refugees. Though it does not have programs dedicated to either refugees or disaster aid, the foundation broadly conducts related grantmaking across its programs.
Important Grant Details:
Johnson and Johnson’s grants typically range from $25,000 to $100,000, but it makes a handful of grants over $1 million. At times, Johnson & Johnson will give multiple smaller grants to a single organization to support projects in different specialty areas.
The foundation does not accept unsolicited funding applications, and comprehensive data on its grantmaking is difficult to find. Its funding priorities are selected by teams of senior executives, and a corporate contributions committee (CCC) provides strategic guidance for foundation spending.
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