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.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation RFP: March 2017
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (Blue Cross) Foundation announced its Healthy Communities 2017 funding opportunity: Health Equity in Action.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation Report: March 2017
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation, through its Health Equity Roundtable initiative, released a report that identifies numerous areas in which the health care system in Greater Boston fails the needs of transgender individuals.
Mat-Su Health Foundation Report: March 2017
The Mat-Su Health Foundation has published the findings of its 2016 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). The report, “Health is Where We Live, Learn, Work and Play,” identified the top factors that affect the health of local residents.
Maine Health Access Foundation Report: March 2017
A new report released by the Maine Health Access Foundation (MeHAF) and the University of Southern Maine, Mental Health Status and Access to Health Care Service for Adults in Maine, describes how adults 18 and older in Maine who report depression and poor mental health have many barriers to getting health care.
Flipping the Switch: Moving from Vaccine Hesitancy to Vaccine Confidence
Clearly, the emergence of “vaccine hesitancy” as an increasingly common theme in health care settings demands attention—and flipping the switch from vaccine hesitancy to vaccine confidence is a necessary and critical step to protect the public’s health moving forward.
Helping Funders Adapt to a Changing Policy Landscape
I recently joined local policy experts and colleagues from Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees and Grantmakers for Education in a Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers forum on the 2016 presidential election’s implications for philanthropy.