NWHF - Northwest Health Foundation

Building Partnerships for Progressive Health Care Reform

Isn’t it ironic that the people most affected by the nation’s dysfunctional health care system tend to be from the same communities that are largely left out of reform discussions? To encourage greater engagement of the communities who would most benefit from health system improvement, Northwest Health Foundation awarded eleven grants totaling $500,000 in 2010. The grants are part of an effort by the Foundation to help Oregonians shape the next phase of reform ...read on

Funding Friends of Public Health - in Coos County, Oregon

County public health agencies throughout Oregon are struggling to deliver vital services, especially in rural counties hit hardest by the recession, and the recent loss in dedicated federal timber revenues. In Coos County, volunteers actually collected spare change for childhood immunizations—just one of the ways a local non-profit group raised close to $10,000 for the county health department. The funds plugged holes in key services and kept Coos County commissioners ...read on

Health Grants for a Financial Institution?

The answer makes sense once you know more about the nonprofit financial institution, Innovative Changes, and the grant maker, which in this case is the Kaiser Permanente Community Fund. Kaiser Permanente Community Fund (KPCF) is a partnership between Kaiser Permanente Northwest and Northwest Health Foundation. The fund invests grantmaking dollars in the places “where health begins” —projects and organizations whose work addresses the social determinants of ...read on

Helping Raise the Voice of the Nurse Leader

National Nurses Week is celebrated every year, from May 6 (Florence Nightingale’s birthday) through May 12 (National Nurses Day). For Nurses Week 2010, Northwest Health Foundation highlighted the leadership role of nurses throughout the state of Oregon. As NWHF’s Judith Woodruff stated in an opinion piece in the Portland Business Journal on May 7, “nearly half of all nurses work outside hospitals — in urban and rural community settings providing care and ...read on

Highlands Does Better with a Community Coach

The Highlands neighborhood in Longview, Washington has, for decades, gone without many of the advantages enjoyed by other communities – a strong retail district, an adequate park, thriving social service organizations, etc. It’s also one of the poorest districts in the state and has some of the highest rates of unemployment, drug use, and debilitating medical conditions such as lung cancer and diabetes to be found anywhere. Clearly, the people who live there ...read on

Listening to Youth

It’s becoming increasingly clear that improving population health and reducing inequalities is related to our ability to create more space for leaders from the “millennial” generation. We know they’re capable. Research has shown that today’s youth have greater rates of civic engagement and volunteerism than their predecessor generations. The younger population is more ethnically diverse than the population at large. New technology and communications and ...read on

Latest News

NWHF senior program officer Chris DeMars writes in the Salem Statesman-Journal that no matter what’s happening — or not happening — on the national stage, Oregon is ...read on

Funding Opportunities

We will begin posting the next round of funding opportunities in March 2012. Be sure to subscribe to our e-news for the most timely updates.