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.
A Lawyer’s Role: Ensuring the Health of Children and Youth in Foster Care
Too often, legal professionals only come into contact with children and youth when they are involved in some type of court action—whether before a judge independency cases, for delinquency or status offenses, or in domestic relations proceedings (such as custody, visitation, child support, and domestic violence).
Mark D. Smith Selected 2014 Terrance Keenan Award Recipient
Mark D. Smith of the California HealthCare Foundation has been selected as the 2014 Terrance Keenan Award recipient.
GIH Announces New Board Members
Patricia Baker, Patricia Doykos, Octavio Martinez, and Scott Moyer have been elected to the GIH Board.
Oregon’s 1115 Medicaid Demonstration: New Partnerships to Power Up a Transformed System of Care
The ACA challenged states to rebuild a heath care system universally viewed as broken. Oregon embraced the challenge with a mix of quality improvement and cost containment strategies reflected in its approved 1115 Medicaid Demonstration.
Preventing Prematurity
Prematurity is the leading cause of infant and newborn deaths in the United States. Each year, one out of every nine infants is born prematurely (CDC 2013).
Working at the Intersection of Healthy Eating, Active Living, and Violence Prevention
This field note describes Kaiser Permanente’s work at the intersection of obesity prevention, violence prevention/reduction, and, increasingly, social and emotional health. It focuses on Kaiser’s experience in advancing multidimensional community-based prevention efforts in Northern California, one of seven regions where it is undertaking this work.