Healthier Information Ecosystems: Strategies for Health Philanthropy

Our information environment is transforming—including the places and people who help us make decisions about our health. Those health information ecosystems are fragmented; filled with information from a wide range of expertise and sources; and platform algorithms exert tremendous and unseen control over what messages are seen, shared, and amplified. These changes have many of our traditional health information sources racing to learn new skills to ensure they remain trusted and relevant.

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Beyond Innovation: How Philanthropy Can Strengthen Systems to Improve Rural Health Outcomes

Sometimes innovation in philanthropy is associated with breakthrough technologies or new medical discoveries. But some of the most impactful investments fund something less visible: the coordination of people, protocols, and institutions already in place so they work together seamlessly to save lives.

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A Philanthropic Tree of Life: Seeding Health Equity through Influence and Innovation

Philanthropy can function as a living ecosystem for change rooted in equity, nourished by trust, and bearing the fruits of community well-being. The Direct Relief Fund for Health Equity (DRFHE), launched with $50 million in initial investments, exemplifies a transformative philanthropic model supporting nearly 200 community-based organizations across the United States. Acknowledging DRFHE as a “Tree of Life” offers a framework grounded in community-led, trust-based, and unrestricted giving that challenges traditional philanthropic paradigms. Therefore, this article describes the fund’s origins, strategic priorities, and outcomes, and introduces the DRFHE Tree of Life framework as a replicable model for equity-driven philanthropy.

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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.

Better Health Through Better Philanthropy - Grantmakers in Health

Recipe for In-Clinic Nutrition Education

When The Colorado Health Foundation began funding in the healthy living space in 2007, staff saw nutrition education as an avenue to encourage the consumption of healthy foods.

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Transforming Philanthropy through Relationships

In the fall of 2014, the third cohort of the Terrance Keenan Institute for Emerging Leaders in Health Philanthropy came together and reached a provocative conclusion: the social capital of grantmakers may be as valuable as grant funding.

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Better Health Through Better Philanthropy - Grantmakers in Health

Sparking a Patient Activation Movement

The Jewish Healthcare Foundation believes that a great health care consumer awakening is upon us. Read this Views from the Field on how a patient activation movement could lead to a health revolution and transform population health.

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Better Health Through Better Philanthropy - Grantmakers in Health

Help All Children Grow Up at a Healthy Weight

Nearly a decade ago, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation set an ambitious goal for itself and for the nation: reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

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Bagels, Pasta, and Pajamas: Importing Ideas to Build a Culture of Health

In this Views from the Field, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shares how it’s exploring and learning from promising approaches from other countries.

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Fulfilling the Promise of Equality: Ensuring that “Health for All” Extends to Everyone

The Affordable Care Act is crucial toward fixing a health care system that has been broken for far too long. But ensuring that “health for all” extends to everyone will require policymakers and advocates to pursue a more inclusive approach to health care reform

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