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Homelessness and Health Equity: Health Funders’ Alignment and California’s Next Medicaid Waiver
California has a new plan under its recently-approved Medicaid waiver that builds on innovations implemented in recent state programs and is centered on health equity, especially for people experiencing homelessness.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation: January 2022
Racism and Racial Inequities in Health: A Data-Informed Primer on Health Disparities in Massachusetts serves as a foundational resource to broaden the collective understanding of racial and ethnic health inequities and disparities. The primer is intended to support discussion about how our healthcare system and other systems that impact health enhance or undermine health, and to facilitate the development of solutions to strengthen those systems to serve all Massachusetts residents.
Public Health Forward: Modernizing the U.S. Public Health System
The Bipartisan Policy Center, deBeaumont Foundation, and the Public Health Forward Coalition has just released Public Health Forward: Modernizing the U.S. Public Health System, a five-year roadmap for public health. The report provides practical, bi-partisan actions to modernize and repair the nation’s public health system. Key recommendation for policy makers and public health departments include addressing: financing; data and information technology; workforce; public health laws and governance; partnerships; and community engagement.
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.
Moving the Needle on Black Birth Equity – A Call to Action
Philanthropy has an urgent responsibility and opportunity to address the structural factors leading to birth inequities. Healthier pregnancies, labors, and postpartum recoveries not only benefit birthing individuals, but also result in healthier children and families. Focusing attention on those who need it most could have positive implications for entire communities harmed by systemic racism for future generations. There is much work to do, but not enough philanthropic organizations are supporting these issues to tackle them at scale. We need all hands-on deck to truly move the needle. We five funders— from different states and coming to this issue from different angles—are reaching out to our fellow funders with a call to action to join us to in this work.
Understanding Power Building Ecosystems
This study offers analysis of the conditions and strategies that enhance or stymie power-building in relation to three ballot initiative issues, each of which has the potential to improve community health outcomes: Affordable Housing, Medicaid Expansion, Criminal Justice Reform.
Reports and Publications
GIH Bulletin: January/February 2026
One year ago, as we were just one month into the new administration, I wrote that “At a moment when so much has been described as ‘unprecedented,’ and so much of what we value is being attacked, we need to ask ourselves as individuals, organizations, and a field, what do we stand for? What values do we hold, and what will we do and say to defend them?” Today, the answers to these questions are needed more urgently than ever.
GIH Bulletin: November/December 2025
GIH President and CEO, Cara V. James, delivered these remarks on Protecting the Freedom to Give at the closing of the 2025 Health Policy Exchange, in Arlington, Virginia.
Behavioral Health Strategies
GIH conducted a survey in late 2024 on funder engagement in behavioral health. This fact sheet, based on a sample of 139 health funders, summarizes the current trends, gaps, successes and challenges for funders. It also highlights philanthropy’s continued commitment to behavioral health while also signaling concern about the upcoming funding environment.