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.
Michael Reese Health Trust: July 2026
Michael Reese Health Trust, in partnership with the VNA Foundation, conducted a landscape scan of domestic violence prevention efforts focused on people who cause harm. The resulting report, Reaching People Who Cause Harm: Policies, Funding, and Strategies in Cook County, identifies urgent challenges as well as new opportunities for how Cook County, Illinois supports survivors, interrupts cycles of harm, and keeps families safe.
Dogwood Health Trust: July 2026
Dogwood Health Trust shared a new disaster response playbook that captures lessons learned from its experience responding to Hurricane Helene in 2024. The playbook and downloadable readiness and response checklist offer practical guidance for how organizations can help stabilize communities in the immediate aftermath of a disaster and lay the groundwork for long-term recovery.
Philanthropy @ Work – Grants and Programs – July 2026
The latest on grants and programs from the field.
30 Organizations Join GIH in Commenting on Proposed Medicaid Work and Community Service Requirements
Grantmakers In Health (GIH) is grateful to the 30 co-signatories who joined us in submitting a comment letter responding to a proposed Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Interim Final Rule requiring adult Medicaid beneficiaries to work or perform community service for 80 hours per month or risk losing their Medicaid benefits.
25 Organizations Joined GIH in Commenting on Proposed Changes to the Federal Grantmaking Process
Grantmakers In Health (GIH) invited philanthropic organizations to sign on to a comment letter responding to a proposed revision of the Office of Management and Budget’s Uniform Guidance that would place federal grantmaking decisions in the hands of political appointees and make substantial changes to the federal grantmaking process.