Applications are open October 1–30, 2026. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), Office of Rural Health, is accepting applications for the State Fiscal Year 2028 Community Health Grant. This competitive state financial-assistance program supports direct primary and preventive care for underserved, uninsured, underinsured, and medically vulnerable patients across North Carolina. It is not a Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) grant or a government procurement contract.
Applicant funding and grant period
Eligible organizations may request up to $150,000 per year. NCDHHS anticipates approximately 33 three-year awards, contingent on funding availability, scoring, and continuing award conditions. The initial SFY 2028 project period is July 1, 2027–June 30, 2028. This $150,000 figure is an individual applicant annual request maximum, not a statewide program pool. The official RFA does not state a single overall statewide allocation or a universal required applicant matching percentage.
Eligible applicants
Applicants must already provide direct primary and preventive health care as a medical home for low-income, uninsured, underinsured or medically vulnerable North Carolina patients. Examples include federally qualified health centers and look-alikes, free and charitable clinics, health departments, nonprofit hospital-owned primary care clinics, state-designated rural health centers, school-based and school-linked health centers, AHEC clinics, and qualifying nonprofit community primary-care organizations. An eligible organization may submit one application, not separate requests for affiliated service sites, doing-business-as entities, or EINs. Current awardees entering Year 2 or Year 3 must propose a new scope or distinct patient population to seek new Year 1 funding.
Choose one reimbursement track
Track A — Encounter-based reimbursement: Payment for qualifying documented medically necessary primary-care visits, including eligible telehealth encounters, for patients who lack adequate access to services. Free clinics participating in Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) protection should carefully review the funder’s warning that compensation for delivering health services may jeopardize that protection.
Track B — Eligible-expense reimbursement: Eligible clinical salaries and fringe benefits, medical or office supplies, approved equipment, and allowable telehealth equipment and related clinical expenses. Indirect costs are ineligible under either track. Funding must not duplicate or supplant other funding.
Grant agreement and application requirements
Successful organizations must complete the state contracting process, submit monthly expense reports for reimbursement, provide required performance measures and reports, maintain an electronic financial software system (an Excel spreadsheet alone is not accepted), document the roles and financial responsibilities of collaborating partners, and connect to or have a plan to connect to NC HealthConnex. NCDHHS warns that failure to execute the award contract within 30 days of receipt can forfeit the award. Review the full official solicitation and the Zengine application for required organizational, narrative, budget, and compliance submissions.
Application deadline: October 30, 2026, at 5:00 PM. The official RFA does not specify an exact deadline time zone; applicants should not assume one. Apply through the Zengine online portal linked on the official NCDHHS SFY 2028 Community Health Grant Request for Applications. Applicants receive a submission confirmation after successfully completing the online process. The RFA lists an additional technical-assistance webinar on October 19, 2026. Official solicitation reviewed October 10, 2026. The sign-in-restricted application’s full interactive form fields were not independently inspected; applicants should confirm these details directly with NCDHHS before submitting.