Giving Voice to the Voiceless: The Case for Advocacy Funding
Funding public policy work is as important to health improvement as funding for direct services. Lessons learned from funding advocates include the importance of providing core operating support, the need to engage the grassroots, and how to empower community members.
Support Cover the Uninsured Week: Making Uninsured Americans a Priority on the Nation’s Agenda
The issue of the uninsured is one of America’s biggest health challenges, and the situation is growing worse. In response, health philanthropies from coast to coast and some of the nation’s most influential organizations in the United States are joining together to support Cover the Uninsured Week from March 10-16, 2003. We hope you will join us in supporting this unprecedented foundation-led educational effort so that we can speak with one voice on behalf of the nation’s uninsured.
If the Dow Breaks, Will Health Philanthropy Fall? Strategic Grantmaking During Economic Uncertainty
If we were measuring the health of our foundations by financial growth over the past two years, some of us might be considering life-support systems. Fortunately for the field, and for those we support through our grantmaking, the health of our organizations is not measured by dollars alone. The measure of our work is defined in people
Efficient Philanthropy: Modest Beginnings at The Health Funders Partnership of Orange County
A recently released report from The Center for Effective Philanthropy, Indicators of Effectiveness, comments on foundations’ growing understanding and interest in assessing their overall performance, noting that many are “convinced that better performance assessment will lead to greater effectiveness and, in turn, to more social impact on the people and issues they affect.”
People, Wildlife, and Ecosystems: Health for One, Health for All
The field of ecological health recognizes that the physical
well-being of people, nonhuman animals, and their habitats are inseparable. This is a profoundly different notion
from the conventional view of health, in which physicians,
nurses, and others treat human ills; veterinarians tend to the
health of livestock, pets, and wildlife; and conservation biologists
and ecologists address habitat health. But the more we learn
about health, the more ludicrous these artificial divisions become.
Putting Knowledge to Work for Mental Health
A challenge to the philanthropic community: do better when it comes to funding for mental health. Dr. Garduque describes how grantmakers can – and should – play a key role in charting new territory, challenging service systems to do better, and promoting the adoption of evidence-based practices.
What Patient Safety is Teaching Us
This Views from the Field spotlights the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative, a regional health care quality and patient safety improvement program. With initial funding from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and support from a wide variety of community stakeholders, this initiative has evolved into a nationally recognized model for improving health care quality.
Congregations as Health Service Partners
The current debate about government funding has sparked renewed interest in faith-based organizations and their role in meeting the economic, health, and educational needs of society. The small, open country chapel…the urban church with declining parishioners and rising community needs…the burgeoning suburban congregation of young families…the mega-church with a multimillion dollar budget…all are lumped together with countless other religious groups as one solution to the nation’s needs.
Funding Biomedical Research: A David in Goliath’s Field
When it comes to funding biomedical research, there is a
perception among health grantmakers that only the Goliaths
of the world can make a difference. A foundation must be as
large as the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, for instance, to hire
a sophisticated staff that can comprehend complex scientific
protocols. It must have the deep pockets and staying power
of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute to afford the notoriously expensive equipment and salaries, and to take a gamble on a payoff that may be long in coming, if ever.
Ad Venture Philanthropy: Creating the Community Campus: A Work in Progress
In late 1999, the Foundation for Seacoast Health celebrated
the grand opening of a noble experiment: The Community
Campus, home to health-related nonprofits, public programs, and the Foundation. The road that led to this
decision to build and share space with grantees was long
and winding, leading us to question if we’d ever get there.