Grantmakers In Health’s five-year strategic plan elevates leadership and influence as one of four strategic pillars for our work. GIH seeks to take a more active role in defining the key issues that will advance better health for all and support health philanthropy with thought leadership and programming to make a lasting impact by influencing advocacy, policy, and funding in targeted areas.

GIH launched its first Policy Agenda in 2023 after soliciting Funding Partner input through focus groups, requests for written comments and suggestions, one-on-one outreach, and reviewing policy agendas developed by our Funding Partners and philanthropy-serving organizations. The Policy Agenda guided our 2023 programming, such as the successful policy-focused Fall Forum Feeding Hearts and Minds: Food as Medicine, Divided Media, and Implications for Public Policy.

Other 2023 programming included a policy statement on the 2023 Farm Bill and joining with other funders in responding to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina in removing race as a consideration for college admission. We also announced a partnership with Grantmakers in Aging aimed at mobilizing funders in support of the 2024 reauthorization of the Older American’s Act and began publishing the Health Policy Update, a new monthly newsletter produced in collaboration with Trust for America’s Health to provide GIH Funding Partners with a range of federal health policy news.

In late 2023, GIH conducted a survey of our Funding Partners inviting input on existing priorities and emerging issues in the policy landscape with a view to refining our policy agenda for 2024. Recognizing that policy change requires a long-term commitment and sustained momentum, GIH’s 2024 policy agenda continues to highlight the goals and objectives selected in 2023. The policy objectives have been reordered, relative to the 2023 policy agenda, to reflect the priorities most commonly selected in Funding Partners’ survey responses. Illustrative examples of relevant policies have also been updated to include topics cited by survey respondents.

This policy agenda identifies our public policy priorities for the coming year. We selected priorities that effect policy and systems change towards health and health equity; align with GIH’s strategic plan; are actionable, timely, relevant, evidence-based, and realistic for GIH’s involvement; galvanize staff, Board, Funding Partners, and health philanthropy; leverage GIH’s organizational resources and unique positioning to lead; and allow GIH to remain nonpartisan. We hope these priorities will also inspire the field of health philanthropy and encourage greater collaboration and commitment to common policy goals among funders. We look forward to working with funders and others to advance this agenda.

Policy Goals

Our public policy priorities seek progress on four overarching goals:

Health Equity
  • Advance health equity and social justice. GIH supports policies that ensure everyone has a fair and just opportunity to achieve their highest level of health by removing structural obstacles to equitable participation in society. Policy changes at the local, state, and national levels are necessary to address the social determinants of health, prevent discrimination, and guarantee social justice for all.
Access
  • Expand health care access and improve quality of care. GIH supports policies that promote the timely use of patient-centered personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcomes. Access and quality are complex concepts influenced by a broad range of factors including affordability, availability, acceptability, timeliness, proximity, ease of use, cultural and linguistic responsiveness, effectiveness, and efficiency. Addressing these myriad issues through a health equity lens will require policy changes related to data and metrics, capacity development investments, provider payment incentives, quality monitoring, and regulatory protections.
Population Health
  • Improve population health. GIH supports policies that emphasize prevention and elevate the needs of people facing disproportionate health risks due to age (e.g., youth, older adults), geography (e.g., rural communities), identity (e.g., people of color, LQBTQ people, people with disabilities), health conditions (e.g., pregnancy, chronic diseases), or circumstances (e.g., immigrants and refugees, homeless people). Investments in public health infrastructure, workforce, and community-level public health and social service interventions are required to prevent disease and promote wellness. GIH’s policy advocacy efforts in 2024 will continue a partnership with Grantmakers In Aging to mobilize funders in support of the 2024 reauthorization of the Older Americans Act.
Advocacy Strategies
  • Promote community engagement and empowerment. GIH supports policies that promote meaningful engagement and build power by facilitating individual and community agency in the decisions that shape people’s lives and health. Public policies, particularly those related to the structure and functioning of our democracy, strongly influence how and when communities can use their voice to advocate for their interests and priorities.

While these goals have long been reflected in our work, GIH seeks to improve the effectiveness of our efforts by clearly identifying the policy changes we support and acknowledging the need to build our capacity to assume new and expanded roles. As a national organization supporting a diverse network of philanthropic organizations, our activities will focus largely on federal policies, with attention to how these policies are implemented in states and localities. We will focus on inspiring the field of health philanthropy with an eye toward strengthening the field’s ability to influence policy change.

Policy Objectives

Advancing these policy goals requires both a long-term commitment and a short-term resolve to action. GIH has identified the following policy objectives to advance our priorities in the coming year:

  1. Expand the supply, diversity, cultural responsiveness, geographic distribution, and safety of the health workforce—including paraprofessionals, Community Health Workers, doulas, and peer specialists. Examples of policies related to this goal include:
    • developing a national workforce strategy;
    • supporting health care workers’ recruitment, training, and retention;
    • eliminating health profession shortage areas by increasing practice incentives and expanding scholarship and loan repayment opportunities;
    • identifying diversity-promoting policies for health professions to ensure the workforce reflects populations served;
    • increasing public funding for pathway programs that cultivate interest and skills for primary and secondary students considering health workforce careers;
    • fostering safe working environments for health workers in a variety of settings (e.g., hospitals, long-term care, etc.); and
    • optimizing state and federal approaches to scope of practice, licensing, and
  2. Ensure comprehensive health insurance coverage for all. Examples of policies related to this goal include:
    • adopting ACA-authorized Medicaid expansion in all 50 states;
    • improving outreach and eligibility redetermination processes in publicly subsidized programs as well as broadening eligibility to protect the continuity and affordability of health coverage; and
    • ensuring an inclusive array of covered services, including behavioral health care, oral health care, clinical preventive services, and reproductive care.
  3. Increase access to high quality equitable care for mental health and substance use.
    Examples of policies related to this goal include:
    • enforcing and expanding parity laws;
    • advancing equity through practice, payment, and system changes that remove care limitations and enhance prevention, crisis response, early intervention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery services;
    • integrating physical health, mental health, and substance use services in primary care, schools, and other community-based settings;
    • expanding the telehealth infrastructure for behavioral health services; and
    • fully reimbursing an adequate network of diverse
  1. Protect and strengthen democracy. Examples of policies related to this goal include:
    • safeguarding voter rights (such as ensuring due process in voter roll maintenance),
    • encouraging voter engagement and participation (such as allowing no-excuse absentee ballots),
    • ensuring equitable representation (such as nonpartisan redistricting and investments in the decennial census), and
    • supporting free and fair elections (such as investments in electoral infrastructure).
  1. Invest and encourage innovation in the public health infrastructure at federal, state, and local levels.
    Examples of policies related to this goal include:

    • increasing investments in noncategorical funding mechanisms to improve flexibility and support capacity building (e.g., restoring full funding to the Prevention and Public Health Fund);
    • modernizing surveillance and data systems, including investments in collecting complete, standardized, self-identified race, ethnicity, and other sociodemographic data;
    • building communications capacity;
    • expanding access to broadband; and
    • supporting workforce
  2. Reduce poverty and advance economic mobility. Examples of policies related to this goal include:
    • lowering the tax burden on low-income families (such as expansions in the value of and eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit);
    • establishing a living wage based on the local cost of living,
    • providing paid sick, medical, and family leave to all workers; and
    • increasing investments in the economic development of low-income
  3. Ensure safe and affordable housing. Examples of policies related to this goal include:
    • increasing and strengthening tax incentives for the development of affordable housing,
    • enhancing publicly sponsored rental assistance;
    • expanding public funding for supportive housing and other services for unhoused people;
    • providing home maintenance support to low-income homeowners; and
    • improving tenant protections for renters (e.g., ensuring legal representation for tenants in eviction hearings).
  4. Increase the availability of high-quality health care services. Examples of policies related to this goal include:
    • supporting the safety net, including community health centers, critical access hospitals, public hospitals, rural health centers, school-based health centers, and certified community behavioral health clinics;
    • promoting development and reimbursement of innovative care models that advance equity;
    • expanding the availability of home- and community-based services,
    • ensuring access to comprehensive reproductive services; and
    • making permanent the flexibility for telehealth services reimbursement available under the public health emergency.
  5. Eliminate nutrition insecurity by making fresh, healthy food accessible and affordable in every community.
    Examples of policies related to this goal include:

    • expanding and strengthening public assistance programs (such as SNAP, WIC, and school meals);
    • integrating screening for food insecurity and “Food Is Medicine” interventions (such as medically tailored meals, into primary care services); and
    • supporting innovations that promote equitable, sustainable local and regional food

Implementing this ambitious policy agenda will require the collective efforts of GIH working together with our Funding Partners and others. We look forward to advocating for policy change that promotes better health for all!