Tiffany Benjamin
Credit - Courtesy Humana Foundation
Last fall, the Humana Foundation donated $15.2 million to nonprofits working to improve the emotional health and nutrition of seniors and school-age children and $6.75 million to expand health equity research at the University of Louisville. The grants were part of CEO Tiffany Benjamin's larger vision to eliminate barriers in health care—an approach that garnered her the 2024 Council on Foundations award for outstanding leadership in corporate philanthropy.
Since becoming head of the health insurance giant's philanthropic arm in 2022, Benjamin has reined in the foundation's once scattered giving strategy to concentrate on mental health, food scarcity and novel health interventions for chronic conditions. Disaster relief is also a priority—in the past year, the foundation sent $1.5 million in aid for recovery efforts after Hurricanes Milton and Helene and an additional $250,000 to help flooding victims in Kentucky. The foundation is also helping to fund Face the Fight, a suicide-prevention program it cofounded in 2023 with USAA that has so far screened nearly 15,000 vets for suicide risk and provided more than 5,000 interventions.
Benjamin has also revamped the foundation's grantmaking strategy to include multi-year grants and streamlined the application process. 'Most of my job is saying no to really great projects, but my favorite thing is when we invest in an organization at a tricky time and they tell us: because of your investment, we were able to do this amazing, big thing,' Benjamin says.
Write to Kerri Anne Renzulli at kerri.renzulli@moneymail.com.
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