The West Virginia First Foundation on Monday approved committing $20 million to a regional addiction recovery project.
The organization’s board voted to approve allocating the funds during a special meeting, though details of the program receiving the funds or how the grant came to be were scarce.
According to a news release distributed after the meeting, the funds will go to the “Appalachian Continuum of Care for Overdose Reduction Network,” or ACCORN. A web search for any program with that name yielded no results and it’s unclear whether it’s a new program or one already existing. There were also no details available Monday on what local, state or national organizations are involved in ACCORN either as supporters or as partners.
An email to the First Foundation requesting more information on ACCORN as well as the approved grant went unanswered by deadline Monday.
At its start, according to the news release, the project will operate in 10 West Virginia counties: Boone, Cabell, Fayette, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Mason, Putnam, Raleigh and Wayne counties. These counties were chosen, according to the news release, due to their “high rates of overdose and significant need for comprehensive interventions.”
“While the focus begins with these 10 counties, the ultimate goal is to develop a scalable, outcomes-based model that can be replicated across West Virginia and beyond,” the news release reads. “The program has the potential to serve as a blueprint for addressing addiction and recovery challenges nationwide, leveraging lessons learned in West Virginia to inform similar efforts across the country.”
No details were provided on Monday, however, documenting what kinds of programs exactly will be undertaken in the named counties to confront the ongoing drug and overdose epidemic or achieve the goals ACCORN and the First Foundation would like to see.
According to the release, the First Foundation’s $20 million for ACCORN will be used to: conduct needs assessments to identify gaps in existing services; develop and implement tailored response plans; expand wrap-around services, including medically assisted treatment, counseling, and housing assistance and track and measure progress through data-driven analysis of overdose rates.
The project, according to the news release, is “part of” the federal ARPA-H HEROES grant program, which allots money for health initiatives. Receiving the funds, unlike many health care grants, is dependent on showing measurable improvements in the issue they were meant to be confronting.
To date, according to the news release, ARPA-H has invested an initial $15 million for ACCORN. Now, per the release, ACCORN is challenging “community stakeholders” to give the next $30 million for its operation to ensure “long-term sustainability and enhanced community impact.” The $20 million investment from the First Foundation is meant to help the project meet that goal.
There are contingencies tied to future funding, however, which is part of what makes the proposal “novel,” according to Dr. Matthew Christiansen, the state health officer and co-chair of the First Foundation’s board of directors.
If ACCORN does not meet certain standards over the next few years — including reporting a reduction in the number of babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, a decrease in recidivism rates and having at least 75% of all drug screenings given to participants show up negative — then funding can be cut.
“It’s novel because … it will cover a large swath of our population, almost about a third of the population, but it’s outcomes-based,” Christiansen said during Monday’s meeting. “[O]utcomes-based is something that we’ve talked a lot about here at the foundation. It’s something that’s really hard to operationalize from a philanthropic standpoint or from a state funding standpoint for that matter. To really look at outcomes and look at buying those outcomes, whatever they may be. And this is a project that has that set up on the front end.”
While the First Foundation has committed the funds, a formal application still needs to be made to the federal government for approval and funding, according to the news release. Local communities that are participating in ACCORN, however that looks, will also be entered into memorandums of understanding for the project and will likely contribute financially to it, as well, Christiansen said.
The money that will be given by the foundation is separate from the $19.2 million made available to state and local organizations for the First Foundation’s 2024 grant cycle. At least 174 applications were submitted from organizations across the state for that pool of funds. Awards for the grant cycle are expected to be announced in coming weeks.
As of Oct. 31, which is the most recent financial statement available on the First Foundation’s website, the organization had a little more than $226 million in the bank.