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
The Latest
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.
Gail Christopher to Be Honored with Terrance Keenan Award
Gail Christopher, Vice President for Policy and Senior Advisor at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will receive GIH’s 2015 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy.
Building the Evidence: Investing in Research Supporting the Need for Healthy and Active Schools
Those leading our education system today face an enormous amount of pressure, from funding issues to curriculum changes, from absenteeism to state assessment scores. With so much to consider and so much to fit into each school day, leaders are often forced to make decisions that de-prioritize an important aspect of a child’s development: physical activity. Following discussions with numerous stakeholders, the Kansas Health Foundation found that a critical missing piece in making the case for the importance of physical activity at school was timely, state-specific data linking student fitness and academics.
GIH Announces New Board Members
Antony Chiang, Jacqueline Martinez Garcel, Garth Graham, and Brenda Sharpe have been elected to its board of directors. Their terms begin immediately after the GIH annual conference in March.
Demonstrating Behavioral Health Impact Using Intensive Community-Based Services
Individuals experiencing an acute episode of mental illness often face challenges navigating a fragmented health care delivery system and overcoming barriers to access appropriate medical and mental health services.
What We Learned from the First Open Enrollment Period, and What to Expect from the Second
As work gets rolling for the second open enrollment period, it is an opportune time to reflect on lessons learned from the first open enrollment period, especially since the second one is shorter and there are fewer navigator resources available from the federal government.
Starting Early: Obesity Prevention in Early Childhood
In late 2009 The Boston Foundation shifted its health grantmaking focus from access to prevention in order to address the rising tide of preventable chronic illness and the escalating health care costs stemming from the obesity epidemic.