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Beyond the Exam Room: Impacting Health Outcomes Through Civic Engagement
August marks Civic Health Month, a time to showcase the link between voting and health and celebrate efforts that ensure every voter can support their community’s health at the ballot box. At the same time, the United States is grappling with a health care system ranked 37th globally despite consuming 17 percent of the country’s GDP. With 26 million Americans uninsured and 43 million underinsured, the gap in access to care continues to widen. This crisis will deepen as critical ACA subsidies expire at the end of 2025, potentially leaving 3.8 million more Americans without coverage, in addition to new federal cuts to Medicaid and changes to how coverage is accessed through the health insurance marketplace, which could result in as many as 20 million Americans losing their health insurance.
Protecting Ballot Measures to Protect Democracy
Access to abortion care in Ohio. The chance to support city candidates with democracy vouchers in Seattle. Promoting judicial ethics in Colorado. An $11 an hour minimum wage in Arkansas. What do these policy changes have in common? They were all enacted through the ballot initiative process, and they all support healthy, thriving communities, both in process and in outcome. But multiple states are seeing efforts to curtail the ballot measure process, limiting the voices of voters.
Pottstown Regional Community Foundation: August 2025
The Pottstown Regional Community Foundation (PRCF) will launch its 2025 Fall Grant Round. For this final grant round of the calendar year, the foundation prioritizes organizations that demonstrate clear alignment with PRCF’s Results Framework and have not yet received an award this calendar year. Competitive requests will be supported by goals stated in community and regional plans and address needs communicated in foundation or other research studies.
Humana Foundation Advances Equity Through Community-Engaged Research Practices
Grantmakers In Health’s Maya Schane spoke with Heather Hyden and Soojin Conover of the Humana Foundation about the Foundation’s recently published report, Strengthening Science and Community Impact Through Equitable Research Practices. The report examines innovative research methods adopted by the Foundation’s partners to promote health equity in public health research through community-engaged research practices.
Collaborating for Impact: Providing Trust-Based Grantmaking and Technical Assistance to Support Local Resilience to Extreme Weather Events
In the last few years, there has been an increased number of extreme weather events, including wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and heatwaves in the United States. In 2023, the United States experienced 28 disasters that cost at least $1 billion, the largest number of billion-dollar disasters in a single year on record (Smith 2024). While some areas of the country are more susceptible to these threats, there are no regions immune to disasters. According to a recent Gallup poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States report they have been personally impacted by at least one extreme weather event in the last two years, which is higher than the 2022/2023 survey result at 33 percent.
Working Through Challenges to Sharing Power With Community: Highlights from a Session at Grantmakers in Health’s Annual Conference
The people closest to the issue best know the solutions. For health funders, sharing power with community could mean giving residents a voice in shaping your grantmaking priorities or where grant dollars are spent. Many funders understand that solutions are more likely to be successful when the people who are most affected have a voice in shaping them. But when it comes to including that voice, the work often stalls before it starts.
Reports and Publications
Health Advocacy: Yes, No, or Maybe So?
Although engagement in public policy is viewed as a mission-critical strategy by an increasing number of health funders, many foundations are still considering whether and how they should support health advocacy efforts. This Issue Focus article briefly addresses some of the key questions foundations are likely to confront as they determine what role, if any, they should play in the public policy arena.
Public Policy Engagement During an Election Year
Political elections create both challenges and opportunities for foundations seeking to inform and influence the public policy process. Philanthropic organizations have broad latitude to conduct or sponsor a variety of policyrelated activities, and this flexibility includes the ability to promote civic engagement and encourage informed participation in democratic elections.
2011 Terrance Keenan Award Acceptance Speech
Read the acceptance speech of Drew Altman, head of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, upon receiving the 2011 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy. He shares his thoughts on what foundations should be, concerns about the field, the theory of change, and his experience transforming Kaiser into what it is today.