Community Benefit At MeritCare
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Mission and Charitable Purpose
Our mission to improve the health and quality of life of the people we serve goes a step further; we also reach out to meet the broad health needs of communities. As a not-for-profit system, we take seriously our community-benefit responsibility. Always, we begin with questions: What is the need? What is currently in place to meet the need? What would truly help? We strive to identify community needs beyond basic health care, then respond to them, aiming for a positive, life-enhancing difference in the community.
Health Improvement Priorities
MeritCare’s Office of Mission and Community Benefit recently conducted a community health assessment to identify the unmet needs of the communities within our service area. We have defined the following top five priorities as follows:
- Disease Management
- Mental Health
- Childhood Obesity
- Family Health Care Center
- Aging Services
Read more about the priorities areas and how we direct our support to meet the top five identified unmet needs.
Donation Policy and Guidelines
MeritCare’s policy is to demonstrate responsible fiscal stewardship as a not-for-profit organization. As such, MeritCare Health System and its subsidiaries generally will not contribute funds to other organizations or projects with the following possible exceptions:
- Annual contributions may be made to the local United Way, in the communities in which MeritCare has a regional presence.
- Support or in-kind services may be provided for health-related projects or services in which MeritCare is partner or participant. In-kind includes non-cash goods and services donated by MeritCare to another group that provides community benefit. Examples of in-kind contributions include but are not limited to free ancillary services such as lab, radiology and pharmacy services provided to the community, meeting room overhead and space, equipment and medical supplies, employee costs on work time associated with community health, emergency medical care at a community event, etc.
- Community Benefit Contribution Application
