Beyond the Rankings: What Four Decades of KIDS COUNT Have Taught Me About Why Data Matter

For more than three decades, through the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT® project, decisionmakers and communities have had access to reliable national, state, and local data to improve outcomes for all children, young people, and families in this country. KIDS COUNT comprises the foundation’s national KIDS COUNT publications—the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book and periodic reports such as Race for Results; the KIDS COUNT Data Center, a resource for year-round national, state, and local data; and the KIDS COUNT Network of state-based partner organizations that help policymakers, advocates, journalists, and community leaders understand and use data to make informed decisions.

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Opioid Use Disorder in Pregnancy: Countering Bias and Promoting Care

Most pregnancy-related deaths in North Carolina are preventable. Yet mental health conditions, including overdose and suicide, remain the leading cause of pregnancy-related death. For health care leaders, that reality demands a closer look at how we identify, treat, and support pregnant and postpartum patients with opioid use disorder.

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Preventing Domestic Violence by Reaching People Who Cause Harm

The research involved a landscape scan of Cook County, Illinois’ policies, funding, and services for people who cause harm with a goal of engaging the stakeholders and providers doing this work as well as survivors and those who receive services to identify barriers, challenges, and strengths of domestic violence prevention programs. The research examined Partner Abuse Intervention Programs (PAIP) in particular, a standard intervention for people who cause harm that is overseen by the Illinois Department of Human Services.

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Post-Overdose Response Teams: A Community-Based Approach to Public Safety

Recent changes in the federal policy landscape have created new questions for communities working to address substance use disorder (SUD), mental health needs, and housing instability. In this evolving environment, philanthropy, in collaboration with community-based organizations and local governments, has an important role to play in supporting evidence-based responses to overdose and mental health emergencies that improve access to care, strengthen community wellbeing, and uplift public health while avoiding unnecessary criminal legal outcomes.

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GIH Health Policy Update Newsletter

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.

How Philanthropy Can Support 988 & Mental Health Crisis Care

Mindful Philanthropy recently released a resource document on how funders can support 988 implementation within a broader crisis response system. This guide dives deeper into impactful opportunities for funders to support 988 implementation and crisis system reform, with a keen eye toward state and local action.

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Philanthropy and Youth Mental Health

Irfan Hasan, deputy vice president for grants at The New York Community Trust, recently authored an opinion piece on philanthropy’s role in addressing youth mental health.

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Advice to Boards Preparing for and Supporting a New Leader of Color

This resource from BoardSource and the Building Movement Project offers insight and advice to boards about how to avoid pitfalls leading up to a transition and after a new leader is hired.

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Investing in Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Communities through Strategic Philanthropic Partnerships

May is Asian American Pacific Islander heritage month, celebrating the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. Recent priorities for grantmakers have focused on racial equity, health and well-being, and immigrant rights. Yet, investments for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders have been under-resourced and deprioritized, receiving only 0.26 percent of philanthropic dollars and 0.17 percent of research funding from the National Institutes of Health.

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Beyond the Headlines: Towards a New Narrative for Health Philanthropy in Haiti

Contrary to the narrative that all philanthropic investments have been ineffective in Haiti, Partners In Health, Build Health International, and Health Equity International have had immense positive impacts on the health sector in Haiti over the last decade. With sustained funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, these nongovernmental organizations are committed to tackling systemic inequities embedded in the health care system.

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Filling Youth Mental Health Gaps by Funding Innovation

The gap is widening between mental health care and our nation’s youth. The continued impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustices, and climate change are deepening this crevice and weighing on young people. The U.S. Surgeon General issued a stark warning on youth mental health, and doctors, hospitals, mental health organizations, and young people are also sounding the alarm.

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