Maximizing Our Investments: Five Ingredients for Accelerating Impact in Health Philanthropy

The 2016 Terrance Keenan Institute fellows gathered to discuss leadership, collaboration, and best practices in grantmaking. Several prominent issues emerged, including how to effectively demonstrate the impact of philanthropic investments.

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Peer Review: A Reflective Look at Our Grantmaking Operations

The Phoenixville Community Health Foundation (PCHF) was approaching its 20th anniversary and a leadership succession via CEO retirement. The foundation’s board and staff thought that it was a good time to take stock in where we started, where we were, and where we were going.

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Beyond Goals and Strategies

Once a foundation decides on a goal and develops a strategy for achieving it, the next order of business is to implement that strategy and to monitor progress toward the goals. While foundations tend to spend a good deal of time developing their strategic plans, implementation often gets short shrift.

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The Benefits of External Eyes

How is our work going, really? Can staff answer that question with a sufficient degree of critical appraisal? Can we rely on the complete honesty of funded partners, who are thrilled that we have recognized their causes as ours, to gain a sense of our impact? Is our board prepared, engaged and yet distant enough to provide a wise response to this fundamental question of success?

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Philanthropic Moral Courage: A Compass for Leading Boldly

Moral courage and risk-taking were hot topics of conversation during our experience as fellows of the 2016 Terrance Keenan Institute for Emerging Leaders.

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No More Half Measures: The Case for Bigger, Bolder Advocacy Support

It is increasingly clear that advocacy and policy change is deeply entrenched in and dependent on political institutions and the political process. This is the perfect time for foundations to furnish themselves with a broad range of tools, helping to ensure that the fights we have always had will not be the fights we always have.

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Igniting a Women’s Health Activist Movement—WHAM!

We at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) are not content to let this activist roar go silent. That is why we recently launched the Women’s Health Activist Movement Global (WHAM Global), a network to empower and cultivate female leaders who advance health care systems that are transparent, respectful, accountable, and equitable.

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Flipping the Switch: Moving from Vaccine Hesitancy to Vaccine Confidence

Clearly, the emergence of “vaccine hesitancy” as an increasingly common theme in health care settings demands attention—and flipping the switch from vaccine hesitancy to vaccine confidence is a necessary and critical step to protect the public’s health moving forward.

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All Hands on Mission

Allegany Franciscan Ministries is a mission-driven grantmaker whose staff, board, and community volunteers strive to understand and connect with the realities faced by the marginalized communities served by the organization.

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Policy Matters: How the Affordable Care Act Has Changed Our Grantmaking

Health reform is not for the faint of heart. When we began drafting this article, it took shape as a reflective piece on the ways in which the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) had affected our grantmaking.

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