August 27, 2026
I read grants, prizes, competitions, and applications all day, so I’ve developed strong opinions about them. The main one is this: a clear, concise application that actually asks the questions that matter is genuinely rare. Most of what crosses my desk is dense, repetitive, or a little vague. So when I opened the AbbVie Foundation Health Equity Accelerator application and found something clean and thoughtful, I was a bit smitten before we’d even applied.
That first impression set the tone for the entire process. We pulled our details together, Jane offered me her usual encouragement, and we sent in something we were proud of. Even if nothing came of it, we were glad to have found an opportunity this interesting.
Something did come of it. We got called for an interview.
In case “health equity accelerator” doesn’t mean much to you yet: it’s a 10-week program run by the AbbVie Foundation in partnership with MATTER, Chicago’s health-care innovation hub. The idea is to help community nonprofits take big plans for expanding access to care and shape them into something real and scalable.
The interview turned out to be as clear as the application had been, and it’s where we met Katie Kosko from MATTER and Jonathas Barreto from the AbbVie Foundation. At the time, they were just two friendly faces asking thoughtful questions. It would be a while before we understood they’d be mentoring us through the entire process, and eventually become our friends.
We were named finalists, joined the cohort, and flew to Chicago for the kickoff. The room was full of people doing remarkable work from SPEAK, Community Grocer, Black Heart Association, Health Justice Initiative, and MedCycle Network. Being around them did something to us. Jane and I left that trip dreaming bigger than we had in a long time, which is exactly what the accelerator is built to make you do.
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Then we came back to DC and got to work. The next 10 weeks moved so fast they felt like one. Our mentor, Rachel Dixon, kept pushing us beyond the plan we’d walked in with, and somewhere during those 10 weeks, the question quietly shifted. We were no longer asking ourselves just how we will serve the 20 schools sitting on our waitlist, but how we reach every under-resourced young person in the U.S.
That question became what we now call our menu of services, a co-investment model that pushed us into financial projections, market research, and a lot of territory we don’t usually spend time in. The exercise clarified something we’d underestimated about ourselves: we’re already innovating and building toward real financial sustainability. Rather than depending on grants alone, this co-investment model is our natural next step.
After weeks of refining, we started rehearsing. Jane, Maddie, and I lost count of the hours we spent trying to tell our story the way it deserved to be told.
In August, we flew back to Chicago for the final showcase. Jane represented us and gave a presentation I couldn’t have been prouder of. Everyone else was excellent too. Honestly, so good that we flew home assuming we hadn’t won.
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A week later, we found out we had.
Working alongside MATTER, the AbbVie Foundation, and the rest of the cohort was an honor in itself. But for Grassroots Health, this experience isn’t a finish line. 17 years in, we know who we are and what we do well. We’re leaving this experience ready to keep growing and innovating, staying true to our mission of democratizing health equity for young people.
Maria Ortiz
Development Manager
Read the AbbVie Foundation and MATTER’s final showcase recap HERE: The AbbVie Foundation and MATTER announce 2026 Health Equity Accelerator grant recipient
