Philanthropic Collaborative
History and Organization
Georgia Health Policy Center partners with public and private grant makers to leverage resources, empower local communities, and address priority health care problems.
The genesis of The Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia was a September 1999 conference, hosted by the Georgia Health Foundation. The conference was attended by a number of private, corporate and community foundations from throughout Georgia. At that event, Governor Roy Barnes challenged the business and philanthropic sectors to work with state government to address Georgia's health care problems. Subsequent to that conference, the Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia was created.
The Collaborative is an informal, but structured, initiative that brings Georgia foundations together to better understand and explore the health-related challenges facing our State and to seek opportunities to form partnerships to address these challenges.
It is spearheaded by a representatives from private, corporate and community foundations. The Georgia Health Policy Center was asked by the Steering Committee to provide staff support and guidance. The work performed by the Center for the Collaborative is underwritten by participating foundations.
Purpose
The primary purpose of the Collaborative's activities is to help foundation staff and trustees be more informed and effective in their health-related grant making activities. The Collaborative is also pursuing opportunities that will enable interested foundations to cooperate with each other to fund projects that can have a meaningful impact on the health of Georgia's communities.
Activities
With the assistance of GHPC, the Collaborative sponsors the following activities:- Newsletters and periodic reports
- Conferences for foundations to enable members to interact with and learn from health care experts
- Co-sponsoring a Matching Grants Initiative in conjunction with the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH)
Programs, conferences, and meetings are open to all Georgia grantmakers.
Matching Grants Initiative
These two initiatives, which took place between 2001 and 2005, offered Georgia foundations an opportunity to partner with the Georgia Department of Community Health, to enable Georgia communities to undertake new actions to improve the health status of their citizens. The Department matched grant funds committed by private, corporate and community foundations where the interests and priorities of the foundation and DCH converged.
These funds were used to support local projects that have a strategic and potentially long-lasting impact on high priority health-related issues facing the State. The matching grants program consisted of a series of separate and distinct grant opportunities. The two priorities selected for the initial matching grants effort were: