Publications

In 1965, the Older Americans Act was a beacon of successful bipartisan legislation to address the social, economic and health needs of older Americans on a national level. Nearly 60 years later, the act has changed little, yet life for older adults and what it takes for them to thrive has changed significantly. This fall, the act is up for reauthorization — providing Congress an opportunity to give it a long overdue modernization to ensure it can meet the needs of older Americans today.

In 2019, MacKenzie Scott announced that she was stepping into the world of philanthropy to give away her multi-billion-dollar fortune “until the safe is empty.” She has kept her word—to date, she has given away $16.5 billion. Her initial process for choosing which organizations would receive grants was shrouded in mystery. From 2019 to 2023, Scott used a process she termed “quiet research” to identify possible grantee organizations. The lucky organizations received a call from Scott’s consultants, who let them know they were receiving a grant for immediate use however they would like to spend it. In the Fall of 2022, Grantmakers In Health (GIH) became one of those grantee organizations, along with more than 20 health foundations. Two additional GIH Funding Partner organizations received gifts in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

The Horizon Foundation of Howard County, Maryland believes that everyone in our community deserves to live abundant and healthy lives. But there are barriers standing in the way of some of our residents—particularly people of color—from achieving that vision. We know that for too long, inequitable laws, policies, and practices have held back many of our neighbors. The foundation recently completed a 14-month long strategic planning process to figure out how to address these systemic barriers in a way that centers the voices of our community members who are most impacted. We realized that our work—what we focus on, who we engage with, and how we make decisions—needed to fundamentally change.