AHP Connect Articles

This is a complex time in healthcare and fundraising. Financially, our organizations are struggling like never before. And yet, many of us also have expanded the definition of healthcare beyond the acute setting and made commitments to our communities to lead to ensure health equity by impacting social determinants of health and focusing on ESG. With capital and even operational needs being assigned to philanthropy alongside the work of increasing the health of our communities in new ways, the question we keep hearing is, "How do I raise money for both?"  

While I don’t know that anyone has the perfect answer, AHP is fortunate to have many members who are out in front, having built successful partnerships with their communities, donors, and local officials that have made a real impact on vulnerable and underserved populations. We are thrilled to bring many of those members to the stage at this year’s Leading Forward: The AHP Executive Summit on March 27-29 in Orlando. 

Our goal for these conversations is to inspire with the impact of what can be done while at the same time sharing the how-tos of getting this work done. We’ll learn about initiatives that are grass-roots and national in scope, led by smaller or larger organizations, delivered in urban and rural settings, and from a wide variety of perspectives–donors, funders, and internal and external partners: 

• We will hear from Vail Health, which in partnership with 30 other organizations in the Eagle Valley in Colorado, is more than halfway to their $100M goal to strengthen the behavioral health–from prevention through to post-outpatient care–of the community there.   

• IU Health will share how they have used fundraising for traditional building projects to support health equity throughout their service area, but especially as they embark on a medical campus project in downtown Indianapolis. 

• We will hear from ProMedica which, thanks to an individual donor’s multi-million-dollar gift, invested $50M into Toledo to reduce negative social determinants of health, including building a local grocery store, offering financial literacy courses, and cooking classes, providing space for a call center, and upskill training for future clinicians. 

• Inova will share how they have been successful engaging individual donors and corporate donors in the DC area in reducing health disparities and addressing social drivers of care. 

• We’ll also hear about the health disparities of Black birthing people nationwide and how narratives and systemic change happen under a collaborative approach with providers, a health system, and public health partners. Alameda Health will show us how to develop a collaboration of this caliber, and share how the outcomes for parents, babies, and communities shift for the greater good.

• CommonSpirit Health will take the conversation national by sharing their experiences launching a system-wide foundation to advance community-based health equity initiative in workforce development, clinical research, patient care, and community health. 

• We’ll also have the chance to hear and see the story from AdventHealth about the way they funded an Early Learning Center in partnership with others in the community which is allowing early intervention for kids who might otherwise be left behind. 

• And a panel of Chief Philanthropy Officers will share their strategies for how to balance traditional needs with those for health equity work in order to truly do it all!