A New Path for Philanthropy: Supporting Oral Health Through Community Partnerships
Good nutrition is essential to good oral as well as overall health. A community-based organization in central Washington state called APOYO shares this belief with Arcora Foundation. Beyond food and nutrition services, the organization has long supported immigrant and Latinx families with culturally relevant outreach, advocacy, and resource navigation. But during the summer of 2025, their ability to support communities was in jeopardy.
Welcoming and Belonging: Drivers for Equity and Growth
More than a decade ago, leadership at REACH Healthcare Foundation began exploring how a community would function if it truly embraced welcoming and belonging for immigrant and refugee populations. The mid-sized Midwest philanthropic foundation sought to invest in a plan to reveal, then address, the systemic barriers impacting Kansas City’s efforts of inclusion for all members of the community.
Healing Takes Practice: Reaching People Is Only the Beginning
Violence is increasingly understood as a public health problem. That shift has changed the way communities respond—moving the conversation beyond policing and criminal justice and toward prevention, intervention, and the conditions that put people at risk. But treating violence as a health problem also requires us to reckon with trauma.
We Didn’t Stop: Leading with Purpose When the System Stepped Back
The notice came the way these things now tend to come: abruptly, in writing, and without a transition plan. In April 2025, Public Health AmeriCorps programs were terminated nationally alongside about 900 other AmeriCorps programs. Funding halted. AmeriCorps service members who had built their careers and households around a year of community health service were left waiting for answers no one could give them. Organizations across the country scrambled.
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.
From Nathan’s to a National Network: Celebrating GIH’s 35th Anniversary
As legend has it, GIH began as a conversation among foundation program officers at a Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs restaurant in New Jersey, in 1978.
Reflections on a Life in Philanthropy
Almost twenty years ago, after a career in public health, I was offered the opportunity to bring my passion for population health improvement to philanthropy. Since then, I have had the unique privilege of leading two new health foundations—one in California, and one in Kentucky.
Reducing the Risk of Exposure to Lead in Drinking Water
Ensuring access to sufficient, safe drinking water has been an essential function of water utilities, public health, and health care professionals around the world for more than a century. The public health community is often on the front lines, responding to elevated blood lead levels—and can speak to the need for prevention.
Philanthropy @ Work – Grants and Programs – June 2017
The latest on grants and programs from the field.