On Tuesday, May 13, 2025, HFL convened our grantee partners to share updates on our 2026-2028 strategic plan. More than 80 La Porte County partners came to join the conversation. The event was a great opportunity for us to shed light on where we are in the strategic planning process, what we’ve learned so far, and where we’re headed next. 

HFL leadership Eric DeWald, President and CEO, and Jessica Mace, Vice President, shared some highlights: 

• 2025 is a year of transition and learning for HFL. 

• Our desire with our grantmaking is to have increased focus in our three priority areas: Attainable Housing, Healthy Eating Active Living, and Mental Health and Substance Use, with more of our funding dollars going toward those areas. 

• We’re conducting landscape scans in our focus areas of Healthy Eating Active Living and Mental Health and Substance Use. 

• This year (2025), we experimented with rolling grant dates rather than the two cycles per year we’d offered in the past. Beginning in January, our grant portal was open for requests, and it will be through June 15, 2025.  

• For 2025, HFL will accept grant applications addressing strategic priorities (Healthy Children, Healthy Living, and Healthy Minds) and Healthy La Porte requests. 

• All grant requests over $25,000 require a Letter of Inquiry (LOI).  

• We also maintained the three grant processes we introduced in 2023: Grants up to $10,000; grants of $10,001 to $25,000; and grants over $25,000.  

• This current grantmaking format is explained in more detail on https://www.hflaporte.org/grants/, including a section of Frequently Asked Questions.  

• By accepting and responding to grant requests on a rolling basis, we were able to increase response times to applicants and allow our grantee partners more time to prepare and submit requests. This “trial run” taught us some things about the process and has informed our grantmaking processes for 2026-2028, which will be announced as details are finalized. 

We provided a summary handout for our Conversation Session guests. We’ll continue to share updates from our transition year through Changemakers Chat, our website, and on HFL’s Facebook page. 

Thank you to those of you who were able to join us for the conversation! Please reach out to us at contact@hflaporte.org or give us a call at 219.326.2471 with any questions.