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.
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.
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.
GIH Health Policy Update Newsletter
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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.
Engaging Youth to Guide Research on Their Own Well-Being
In 2019, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Equity and Inclusion unit hosted a convening with young people from Black, Latinx, and American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) cultural affinity groups, along with adults who support the work and leadership of these youth and young adults. The young participants, many of whom were from the Aspen Institute’s Fresh Tracks program, expressed the need for young leaders to be the ones defining youth well-being and finding solutions that help their own communities support the well-being of young people.
Connecting Mental Health and Wealth in North Carolina
Mental health and wealth are inextricably linked, influencing each other bidirectionally. While many factors contribute to mental health, we know from the social determinants of health that the most foundational are socioeconomic, including income, wealth, and safe neighborhoods. Asset Funders Network defines wealth in an assets-to-debt ratio.
A Compass of Indispensable Leadership Attributes to Guide Health Philanthropy
Trends in leadership are changing—just take the Terrance Keenan Institute as an example. When the program started in 2010, it focused on general leadership tactics with topics that ranged from leveraging resources and building partnerships to board dynamics. Since then, the Institute’s curriculum has moved towards a recognition that leaders possess individual strengths that can be embraced to make our organizations and the broader field of health philanthropy more effective.
NY Health Foundation: January 2024
Although New York has one of the lowest veteran suicide rates in the nation, suicide remains a persistent challenge. Recent data shows that the rate has remained stubbornly high over the last 10 years despite numerous federal, State, and local investments in prevention efforts. A new NYHealth Foundation snapshot shows trends from 2012–2021, using the latest available data.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts: January 2024
Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts partnered with Manatt Health to develop a vision, framework, and proposed statewide Health Equity Action Plan that offers an organizing structure, process, and set of practical steps for collectively achieving a racially and ethnically equitable health care delivery system in Massachusetts.