Beyond the Rankings: What Four Decades of KIDS COUNT Have Taught Me About Why Data Matter

For more than three decades, through the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT® project, decisionmakers and communities have had access to reliable national, state, and local data to improve outcomes for all children, young people, and families in this country. KIDS COUNT comprises the foundation’s national KIDS COUNT publications—the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book and periodic reports such as Race for Results; the KIDS COUNT Data Center, a resource for year-round national, state, and local data; and the KIDS COUNT Network of state-based partner organizations that help policymakers, advocates, journalists, and community leaders understand and use data to make informed decisions.

Read More →

Opioid Use Disorder in Pregnancy: Countering Bias and Promoting Care

Most pregnancy-related deaths in North Carolina are preventable. Yet mental health conditions, including overdose and suicide, remain the leading cause of pregnancy-related death. For health care leaders, that reality demands a closer look at how we identify, treat, and support pregnant and postpartum patients with opioid use disorder.

Read More →

Preventing Domestic Violence by Reaching People Who Cause Harm

The research involved a landscape scan of Cook County, Illinois’ policies, funding, and services for people who cause harm with a goal of engaging the stakeholders and providers doing this work as well as survivors and those who receive services to identify barriers, challenges, and strengths of domestic violence prevention programs. The research examined Partner Abuse Intervention Programs (PAIP) in particular, a standard intervention for people who cause harm that is overseen by the Illinois Department of Human Services.

Read More →

Post-Overdose Response Teams: A Community-Based Approach to Public Safety

Recent changes in the federal policy landscape have created new questions for communities working to address substance use disorder (SUD), mental health needs, and housing instability. In this evolving environment, philanthropy, in collaboration with community-based organizations and local governments, has an important role to play in supporting evidence-based responses to overdose and mental health emergencies that improve access to care, strengthen community wellbeing, and uplift public health while avoiding unnecessary criminal legal outcomes.

Read More →

GIH Health Policy Update Newsletter

An Exclusive Resource for Funding Partners

The Health Policy Update is a newsletter produced in collaboration with Leavitt Partners and Trust for America’s Health. Drawing on GIH’s policy priorities outlined in our policy agenda and our strategic objective of increasing our policy and advocacy presence, the Health Policy Update provides GIH Funding Partners with a range of federal health policy news.

Responding to COVID-19 and Beyond

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trust was compelled to do our part. Like most philanthropic organizations, we were determined to maximize impact and make grants quickly, while also adhering to our due diligence standards.

Read More →

From Citizen-Led Ballot Initiative to Community-Centered Solutions for Mental Health and Substance Misuse

Our mission is to address Denver’s mental health and substance misuse needs by growing community-informed solutions, dismantling stigma, and turning the community’s desire to help into action. In less than one year of operation, we have funded 41 organizations and five City agencies and provided $17.3 million in funding to the Denver community.

Read More →

Innovation in the Safety Net

This country’s safety net health system has always been a place of innovation. The safety net includes community health centers and public hospitals that serve the 100 million patients who either have Medicaid or lack health insurance entirely. With limited resources and patients with complex medical, social, and behavioral health needs, the safety net has long had to innovate out of necessity.

Read More →

Health Equity: Our Way Forward …Through COVID-19 and Beyond

Eric Kelly, President, Quantum Foundation For health funders, it is essential that we realize that even given all of the unforeseen devastation of COVID-19, and the compounding social crises in its wake, many of our communities began 2020 already in a health crisis. These pre-existing conditions allowed a global pandemic that does not discriminate to…

Read More →

Can We Have It All? Balancing Key Factors in Evaluating a Grant Portfolio

Like many funding organizations, Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc., has been on a journey to incorporate strategic evaluation into its grantmaking, and in 2019, completed an ambitious suite of impact evaluations. The evaluation had multiple aims, including: determining the portfolio’s impact; examining the impact of each intervention via program-level studies; and supporting grantees’ use of and capacity to engage in these and future evaluations.

Read More →