Health Policy Update: April 17, 2025

In an effort to help our Funding Partners better understand the changing health policy landscape in the new administration and Congress, Grantmakers In Health (GIH) is expanding the GIH Health Policy Update newsletter to three issues per month. Working in collaboration with Leavitt Partners, a leading health care policy consultancy, we are adding new installments of the newsletter on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, while we will continue to partner with Trust for America’s Health on the installment released on the second Wednesday of the month.

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Charting a New Course: Roadblocks, Breakthroughs, and Discoveries

Each year, GIH asks health funders to share their thoughts on our annual conference theme. This year’s authors wrote essays about what it means to chart a new course in health philanthropy.

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Stanford Social Innovation Review: Innovations in Health Equity

As foundations begin to think differently about how to improve the health of all people, many grantmakers are looking outside of health care and collaborating across sectors to address the root causes of persistent health disparities and inequities. Achieving health equity requires innovative solutions that result from the combined forces of philanthropy, policymakers, government, community-based organizations, and other partners.

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Policy Unsweetened: Tackling Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

Grantmakers’ interest in supporting healthy eating policies has grown over the past two decades and been rewarded with considerable progress. Nonetheless, the next phase of policy work brings new challenges, opportunities, and questions. To explore these issues, Grantmakers In Health (GIH) convened Tackling Difficult-to-Crack Healthy Eating Policies, a strategic conversation for funders, practitioners, and experts in Sacramento, California. 

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Lessons Learned from Advocacy to Expand Children’s Coverage: A Recipe for Success

From 2008 to 2014, the number of uninsured children in the United States fell from 7.3 million to 4.4 million, an astonishing 40 percent drop (Annie E. Casey Foundation 2015). This striking progress toward the goal of universal health insurance coverage of children shows what can be achieved when sufficient resources are marshaled and directed in the right way, at the right time.

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Building on Achievements in Extending Children’s Health Coverage

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, commonly known as the ACA, included a range of measures to improve the health of children and secure children’s access to needed health services. This publication takes stock of progress in implementing those measures and considers what will be needed to keep the momentum going and address outstanding challenges.

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Healthy Eating and Active Living: Checking in on Philanthropy’s Investments

The Surgeon General’s Call to Action in 2001 sparked widespread public concern about the rising prevalence of obesity and overweight in the United States. Since then, many health funders have supported obesity prevention, healthy eating/active living, and healthy living.

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Exiting Thoughtfully

Foundations that have adopted a limited-life approach have employed a number of principles to guide them in wrapping up their work. Several of these guidelines offer best practices for funders who are exiting from a field or retiring from grantmaking altogether. These lessons may in some cases also be relevant for foundations transitioning from an ongoing support model to a model of one-time/high-impact grants.

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