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.
Reflections on Building the Advocacy Capacity of Nonprofit Organizations
The Kansas Health Foundation reflects on a series of multiyear, targeted investments to build Kansas Action for Children’s advocacy capacity, and shares several lessons learned along the way.
2014 Terrance Keenan Institute Fellows Named
GIH is pleased to announce the 2014 Terrance Keenan Institute for Emerging Leaders in Health Philanthropy class of fellows.
Health Impact Assessments– A Pathway to Health Equity
Health impact assessments offer an approach that helps build robust collaborations between health and other sectors by providing timely, accurate, and relevant information intended for use in real-time decisionmaking.
Call for Nominations: 2015 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy
Nominate an outstanding health grantmaker to receive the 2015 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy. The Nomination deadline is Friday, September 5, 2014.
Stepping Out: One Foundation’s Lessons Learned from Leading a Ballot Initiative
The Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City (HCF) shares lessons learned from an evaluation of its involvement in Missouri’s 2012 tobacco tax ballot initiative, one of the first times when HCF stepped into the public sphere in support of an issue.
Reclaiming Futures, Rebuilding Lives
The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust has learned that although direct service grantmaking can yield immediate results, it often cannot address the underlying causes of poverty or make a lasting impact. To better address these challenges, the Trust has shifted the focus of some of its grantmaking to efforts designed to change the systems serving these populations.