PA Health Funders Hold Fifth Annual Conference

The Pennsylvania Health Funders Collaborative (PHFC) held its fifth annual conference in Philadelphia October 26 and 27, 2011 with a full agenda that included release of a new study on the Collaborative's earliest priority of integrating physical and behavioral health care to improve patient outcomes. PHFC is co-chaired by Karen Wolk Feinstein, President and CEO of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, and Russell Johnson, President and CEO of the North Penn Community Health Foundation outside Philadelphia. First formed in 2008, the Collaborative works to improve the effectiveness of health funders' initiatives by collaborating, networking, sharing best practices and creating a unified voice among funders working in communities across Pennsylvania. Thirty funding organizations are now participants, including GWP members Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, FISA Foundation, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, Jewish Healthcare Foundation, McAuley Ministries and Staunton Farm Foundation.  [more...]

Managing The End of Life

Jewish Healthcare Foundation is currently funding its five-year Closure Initiative, an education, planning, outreach and education effort to encourage people to reflect on how they would like their lives to end and make appropriate plans. In addition to funding projects such as a recent WQED documentary entitled The Last Chapter, next spring JHF will convene stakeholders across Pennsylvania for a dissemination and implementation conference entitled Closure: Developing a Statewide Strategy for End-of-Life Education and Care Delivery. [more...]

What Will Southwestern Pennsylvania Look Like in 2040?

On September 28, GWP members had the opportunity to learn how demographic changes in the coming decades will affect the region’s families, its neighborhoods, and its key nonprofit institutions. Together with the University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, GWP welcomed Alan Berube, research director and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. Berube shared his most recent research and participated in an ‘armchair discussion’ with Richard Schultz, director of the University Center for Social and Urban Research, and Mildred Morrison, director of Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging. This program, entitled “40 and Counting,” highlighted how demographic shifts toward an older population will affect nonprofit agencies and local government, and the trends the philanthropic community should keep in mind when considering grant investments today.

Why Would A Foundation Tweet?

Lucy Bernholz of Philanthropy 2173 noticed that staff at the James Irvine Foundation are using Twitter. Click here to read her interview with Jim Canales, the CEO of the foundation, asking him why they decided to experiment with social media.

 [more...]