Following its strategic priorities to Educate, Invest, and Strengthen, over the last year the New Hampshire Children’s Health Foundation has moved to increase its role as a convenor, thought leader, advocate, and change agent in addition to our ongoing important work in grantmaking.
In 2023 the Foundation’s Board of Directors established an Equity Task Force and developed and approved an equity definition for the organization.
In addition, the Foundation decided to more fully embody trust-based philanthropy. Trust-based-philanthropy is in large measure about rebalancing the relationships between funders and their nonprofit partners. On a practical level, this includes unrestricted funding, streamlined applications and reporting, and a commitment to building relationships based on transparency, dialogue, and mutual learning.
The Foundation’s grantmaking committee reviewed, and the board approved, a number of strategic grants and investments in 2023. These include research to assess the state’s workforce capacity in early childhood and family mental health.
The New Hampshire Children’s Health Foundation partnered with the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and the Endowment for Health to fund successful public policy advocacy to improve access to coverage for Medicaid participants, to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates to support the health and mental health workforce and to make services more available for children and their caregivers.
The Foundation also awarded significant funding in 2023 to four communities/regions (Nashua, Concord, Coos County and the Monadnock region) to initiate multi-year efforts to build Trauma Responsive Communities. The goal of these projects is to strengthen existing community-based resources to prevent and reduce childhood trauma.
For additional detail, including a full summary of grant awards, see the Foundation’s 2023 annual report.