Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

“Get Up, Stand Up” Award for Rapid-Response Grantmaking

Press Release | Video

In 2024, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) made a significant change. While holding true to the goal of building a future where health is not a privilege, but a right, the Foundation pledged that dismantling structural racism — one of the biggest barriers to health in America — would sit at the center of its mission.

In 2025, that commitment has been put to the test.

Today, a broad retrenchment on the policies, progress, and concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion poses serious threats to health in America. Federal officials and others have stoked hostility toward these shared values to justify cuts to funding for vital research, the removal of important health data, the systematic destruction of public health systems and a massive assault on our constitutional freedoms. Those efforts have undermined the work on commonsense policy solutions, including expanding healthcare coverage and eliminating other inequities in health and well-being.

Rather than staying silent in the hopes of avoiding reprisals, RWJF decided to raise its voice, loudly and persistently. When the Trump administration issued executive orders rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in its first days, RWJF immediately condemned the actions and pledged to defend these fundamental American values, including boosting investments in efforts to diversify healthcare professions.

In the following weeks, RWJF President and CEO Dr. Richard Besser shared a letter titled “Reaffirming Our Shared Vision” with a clear — and optimistic — message for partners, grantees, and the public: “When inspired by a shared vision and hope for a better future, we can marshal enduring resilience and strategic defiance to confront and overcome the assaults on our health and wellbeing,” he wrote. “We recommit our institution to joining you in paving a path to that shared future — no matter how difficult the times. And we rededicate ourselves to taking bold leaps even in the face of hostility and obstruction.”

Resourcing the Most Pressing Needs 

While still in its early stages, RWJF’s Truth, Repair, and Transformation initiative is priming the Foundation to meet its mission more thoughtfully and intentionally. RWJF launched the initiative in 2023 to transform its work from the inside out, including learning from its own missteps, intentionally rebalancing priorities and funding to community-led power-building organizations, especially those doing grassroots organizing, and better serving the interests of people facing the largest barriers to health.

As attacks on equity and funding cuts have unfolded, RWJF has focused on listening to grantees and partners, following their collective wisdom and deploying resources that meet their most pressing needs with urgency and precision.

In 2025, the Foundation issued $10 million in stop-gap funding for former National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grantees, and $20 million to support the preservation of public health data that informs research and treatments. Another $10 million is supporting local, data-driven studies on health inequities, while RWJF’s Evidence for Action released a new round of grants to support researchers whose projects on racial and Indigenous health equity were canceled or defunded by the Administration’s federal funding cuts. Through support for legal efforts, RWJF partners worked through the courts to halt the deportation of unaccompanied children, ensure the restoration of public websites with data on HIV, opioid addiction, and the health of Black Americans, and protect academic freedom.

“With new threats to our mission and our grantees coming every day, we know we have to be strategic and determined,” said Dr. Besser. “We are showing our partners that we’re unwavering in our core values and working to support their immediate needs — while also ensuring that every action we take is tied to our long-term goals and our overall mission.”

In response to growing attacks on researchers and scholars in health equity and other fields, the Foundation provided support, for the first time, to PEN America and American Association of Colleges and Universities, which have deep experience and expertise in digital safety and academic freedom. And when the Trump Administration reversed previously approved funding for public broadcasting, RWJF joined a coalition of philanthropies to provide a combined $36.5 million to protect access for communities, especially rural areas and underserved communities, that rely on public media for reliable and accurate health reporting, emergency alerts and educational programming.

Speaking Out and Calling In Philanthropic Peers

Rising to current challenges also means deploying more than financial resources. As a highly visible philanthropy with a trusted voice, RWJF is committed to speaking out, both to inspire peer philanthropies and leaders in other sectors to step up in the same way, and to address critical issues where grantees might be vulnerable to reprisals.

Senior leaders have been vocal on critical issues, from the impact of federal funding cuts to nutrition and housing assistance and insufficient support for rural hospitals, to the gerrymandering efforts designed to disempower communities of color. When the Open Society Foundations faced blatant intimidation and overreach from the U.S. Department of Justice, RWJF spoke out against the government’s targeting of philanthropies, and encouraged others to join them, saying: “Silence will not keep any institution safe. People with power and privilege must raise their voices to denounce this dangerous overreach.”

Dr. Besser is especially focused on responding to politically driven vaccine policies and the dismantling of public health systems, issues that connect to his experience as former acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and decades as a practicing pediatrician. “Nothing made a bigger difference for the health of my patients than ensuring they were vaccinated, fully and on schedule,” said Dr. Besser. “It’s essential that we have trusted, science-based voices pushing back against the reckless, ideological agenda coming out of Washington right now.”

“Our people and teams are as dedicated as ever to the work of promoting health equity and dismantling structural racism, even as that has taken on different forms in the face of new and urgent challenges,” said Dr. Besser. “It’s truly an honor to have their work and commitment recognized by NCRP.”