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
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.
2025 GIH Strategic Plan
IntroductionExecutive SummaryOrganizational BackgroundMission & ValuesEnvironmental Scan2025 StrategyKey Actions and Indicators of SuccessConclusion
GIH’s History
For 40 years, Grantmakers In Health has been a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to helping trustees and staff at foundations and corporate giving programs improve the health of all people.
40 Years and Future-Focused: Announcing GIH’s New Strategic Plan
As we approach our 40th year of supporting philanthropy—we at GIH have been reflecting on how the field is evolving, what is needed to achieve better health, and what our role in this work can be. We’ve asked for guidance on what we do well and where we can improve. And we’ve reflected on your feedback, reaffirmed our mission and values, and identified intended outcomes. The result is our new five-year strategic plan.
Sustaining Changes in Foundation Practices
A new report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy explores how foundation practices have shifted in the last 18 months and whether those changes will be sustained in the future. Foundations Respond to Crisis: Lasting Change? documents shifts in how foundations identify applicants, reductions in administrative burdens for grantees, increases in unrestricted funding, and new efforts to advance racial equity.
Freedom to Thrive: How Health Funders Can Support Transgender Communities
Despite well-documented disparities in health and well-being, according to Funders for LGBTQ Issues, for every $100 awarded by U.S. foundations in 2018, only 4 cents directly supported transgender communities. GIH Program Director Ann Rodgers sat down with Kris Hayashi and Alexander Lee to learn more about how health funders can support transgender communities.
The Time is Now: A Call for Philanthropic Engagement in the Implementation of the New 988 Mental Health Crisis Hotline
The Sozosei Foundation believes that 988 provides a once in a lifetime philanthropic opportunity to create the mental health and crisis response services that, frankly, have never been properly resourced. We believe that this will help to decriminalize mental illness and significantly move the needle on our overarching goal of eliminating the use of jails and prisons for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.