The Rasmuson Foundation in Anchorage, Alaska, has announced grants totaling $13.5 million to nonprofits and initiatives working to improve the quality of life in the state.

The grants include $3 million to the Southcentral Foundation's Nuka Institute for a program to provide training and technical assistance to health providers that have adopted the Nuka model of care, which has proven to improve health outcomes for residents of the state at lower cost.

"Southcentral Foundation is responding to tremendous demand for training on the healthcare system it pioneered," said Rasmuson Foundation president Diane Kaplan. "Like the Dental Health Aid Therapist program, Nuka is an example of Alaska innovation that can be replicated around the state and country to solve one of the biggest challenges of our time: improving health while containing costs."

The grant to Southcentral was awarded through Rasmuson's Tier 2 program, which provides grants of more than $25,000 for capital projects, projects of strategic importance or of an innovative nature, or the expansion or start-up of programs that address issues of broad community or statewide significance. Other grants made through the program include $1.3 million to the City of Nome for the construction of the Beringia Center of Culture and Science; $750,000 to the Kodiak Area Native Association to build a new clinic in Kodiak that will both improve access to behavioral health services and better serve veterans and dependents of active duty military; and $300,000 to the Rural Alaska Community Action Program to repair and improve eight Head Start centers around the state over the next three years.