Your Shot Texas awards more than $1.4 million in second round of grants to raise confidence and increase access to COVID-19 vaccines in Texas

Your Shot Texas is investing more than $1.4 million to help community-based organizations increase access to COVID-19 vaccines, battle hesitancy, and make sure communities that have been hit hardest by the virus have an equal shot to get vaccinated. This is the second round of grants awarded in 2021 by the statewide philanthropic effort created by Episcopal Health Foundation in Houston, Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. in San Antonio, and The Meadows Foundation in Dallas.

Your Shot Texas is a statewide pooled fund providing grant dollars to nonprofit organizations across Texas with existing relationships to priority groups, including people of color and under-resourced rural and urban communities. To date, the fund has raised $2.7 million from 16 donors and foundations across the state.

In June, Your Shot Texas awarded more than $400,000 in initial grants to 12 community organizations. So far, those 12 groups have directly reached almost 106,000 Texans in 58 counties with tactics to improve COVID-19 vaccine confidence and more than 2,500 people have received a first or second dose of a vaccine. More than half (52%) of individuals who received a vaccine as a result of efforts by nonprofits supported by Your Shot Texas were people of color.

“We’re beginning to see what we all wanted to see — more shots in arms across the state,” said Elena Marks, Episcopal Health Foundation’s president and CEO. “These first results show that trusted messengers and established community groups can battle the misinformation keeping many people from wanting a vaccine, and then they can help eliminate some of the every-day hurdles that prevent them from actually getting the shot.”

Initial Your Shot Texas funds supported successful efforts to raise vaccine confidence including:

• Door-to-door canvassing
• Small group and peer-led education sessions
• Outreach events in partnership with churches, schools, and pharmacies
• Phone, text message, and social media campaigns

Successful efforts to increase access to vaccinations include:

• Direct help with vaccine appointment scheduling and following up to ensure people received their second dose
• Mobile vaccine distribution sites with perks like onsite childcare, food trucks, care packages, and other incentives
• Free transportation to vaccination centers through coordinated transportation or buses, public transportation tokens, and/or rideshare gift cards
• Mobile Vaccine Teams that provided at-home vaccinations for seniors

In this latest round of $1.4 million in funding, Your Shot Texas is awarding grants to 22 organizations and community collaboration efforts across the state that include innovative projects like using medical students for door-to-door vaccine awareness efforts, BBQ block parties in targeted zip codes to address vaccine hesitancy, gift cards and financial incentives for those who have completed their vaccinations, and much more.

ROUND 2 GRANTS: $1,442,500