Amherst H Wilder Foundation

Amherst H Wilder Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota, operates as a prime recipient of federal grants focused on homelessness prevention, mental health services, and substance abuse treatment, with a secondary stream of sub-recipient work flowing through Minnesota state agencies. The Foundation does not hold federal contracts; its footprint is exclusively grant-funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Foundation's customer concentration is heavily weighted toward HUD's Continuum of Care (CoC) Program, which accounts for 54 awards across the prime and sub-recipient portfolio. HUD's CoC awards support permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, transitional housing, and supportive services for homeless individuals and families. Representative CoC prime grants include annual awards running July 2024 through June 2025, January 2024 through December 2024, and the most recent award from January through December 2026. Beyond CoC, the Foundation acts as a direct recipient of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) funding—holding a four-year Community Based Health Centers (CCBHC) Implementation Award from September 2023 through September 2027 focused on improving access to mental health and substance abuse services in Ramsey County, Minnesota for low-income, culturally and linguistically specific populations including Black/African American, East African, Afghan, and Southeast Asian communities, with annual projected reach of 2,000 clients and total project reach of 3,500 clients.

The Foundation's sub-recipient activity is concentrated within Minnesota's state grant ecosystem. It acts as a sub-recipient to the Minnesota Department of Human Services across multiple federal block grants and special initiatives, including the Federal Mental Health Block Grant, Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant, the State Opioid Response Grant, Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP), Family First Transition Implementation, and child care administration. Sub-awards from Minnesota DHS date back to 2021 and continue through 2025, with multiple tranches issued across fiscal years. The Foundation also receives sub-awards from Hearth Connection, a HUD CoC prime grantee, for permanent supportive housing and rental assistance to chronic homeless households, and a sub-award from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development for multi-purpose community facility projects supporting community revitalization, connectedness, and equity.

Activity has remained relatively stable over the past five years (15 awards in 2022, 14 in 2023, 17 in 2024, declining to 9 in 2025 and 1 in 2026 to date), with 139 total awards in the source data spanning from October 2003 forward. The Foundation operates primarily as a sub-recipient (58% of awards) rather than a direct prime recipient (42% of awards), reflecting its role as an implementation partner within state and local homelessness and behavioral health systems. Only three awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, limiting near-term recompete exposure. Combined dollars obligated across all 139 awards total $32.1 million, and the Foundation serves fifteen distinct federal customer agencies, though HUD and HHS account for the overwhelming majority of activity through the CoC and SAMHSA programs.