Reimagining Health Philanthropy, Together
During Day 2 of the 2025 Annual Conference on Health Philanthropy, attendees across sectors worked together to identify the intersections of their work and co-created solutions for healthier, thriving communities. Sessions spanned a wide range of topics, from exploring business’ role in health equity to strategies for supporting staff in uncertain times.
Remarks on Defending Philanthropy’s Freedom to Give
President and CEO of Grantmakers In Health (GIH), Cara V. James, delivered opening remarks at the 2025 GIH Annual Conference on Health Philanthropy in New Orleans.
Building a Collaborative Vision of the Future
Today, over 840 funders and thought leaders, representing 440 organizations, gathered in New Orleans for the largest Annual Conference on Health Philanthropy ever. Conference attendees started the day with site visits around the Crescent City and newcomer and networking lunches, rooting the week ahead in connections with the New Orleans community and each other.
Racial Equity Requires Funding to Build Power
By focusing on power building to reverse the longstanding inequities that prevent communities of color and low-income communities from thriving, philanthropy can help build safe, strong, and stable communities for all of us.
Productive Partnerships
Twenty years ago, a small group of grantmakers launched a Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN), seeking to bridge health and environmental philanthropy and to focus more attention on links between human, wildlife, and ecosystem health. One of my first tasks as HEFN’s first staffer was to try to engage health funders in this enterprise.
New Tools to Combat Ageism
The idea that we live in a rapidly aging society is not news, but here is an important fact: in ten years (by 2030), the United States will have more people over the age of 65 than children under 18 for the first time in its history. And yet, our society has not responded to the opportunities or the challenges that this change provides.
Creating a Neutral Space, Pursuing a Common Mission
Importantly, FCAA created a neutral space for funders; one where individual organizational agendas took a back seat to a unifying mission. This space became an incubator for philanthropic action.
EITC Pooled Fund: Lessons on Ideas, Innovation and Impact
Since 2011, Economic Opportunity Funders (EOF) has been working to increase public support for state EITCs through the EITC Pooled Fund (The Fund). We provide a table around which multiple funders can align support to work on an area of mutual interest, and a mechanism by which funders can quickly and collaboratively deploy funding to help meet the needs of the field.
Boosting Philanthropic Investment in Healthy Food in Tribal Communities
Tribal communities in America receive only about a half percent of all philanthropic giving, and the total dollar amount of grantmaking in these communities by large philanthropic foundations actually declined by 29 percent ($35 million) from 2006 to 2014 according to a report by First Nations Development Institute. Additionally, only a small portion of those grant dollars go to Native-controlled organizations.