Progress Areas

Enhancing Impact

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Goal

Leverage our resources to increase impact

Progress

  • Leveraged more than $220 million from public and private sources, including direct co-funding. 

What this means

Leveraging is a strategy across all program areas. Since 2009, more than $1.1 billion has been leveraged. 

Leveraging has allowed us to support, sustain, and expand efforts across the State. 

Enhancing Impact

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Goal

Deploy activist model to achieve broad policy impact

Progress

NYHealth and our partners advocated to improve access to healthy food:  

  • The Farm-to-School Program was codified into law.  
  • The State budget provided for more than 80% of public school children to receive free school meals.  
  • The legislature passed the Good Food NY bill to improve the quality of food in public institutions, but it was ultimately vetoed.  

Policies to improve primary care advanced in the State legislature. Bills to (1) increase the share of health care dollars dedicated to primary care and (2) allow Medical Assistants to administer vaccinations are pending.

NYHealth staff are active members in nearly a dozen State and national work groups, including a multi-state Primary Care Investment Network; the New York State Council on Hunger and Food Policy; and the New York State Veterans Treatment Court advisory committee.  

What this means

We are a changemaker as well as a grantmaker. Using our reputational and human capital enhances our impact beyond funding. 

Policy change takes time. As policy proposals evolve, we will continue to provide strategic support to ensure effective implementation.  

NYHealth continues our commitment to advocacy by providing expert testimony to decision-makers. Actively using our voice informs and influences policy and participating in workgroups ensures philanthropy is integrated into strategic policy conversations. 

Enhancing Impact

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Goal

Advance racial health equity in our external and internal practices

Progress

  • Awarded nearly $400,000 to a cohort of grantees focused on supporting a more racially equitable and healthier food system.  
  • Released a Request for Proposals to support projects that will advance maternal health equity through primary and preventive care.  
  • A staff-led equity committee facilitated multiple learning and reflection opportunities. 
  • Conducted and completed all-staff anti-bias training. 

What this means

NYHealth is committed to advancing racial health equity and making meaningful changes to internal and external practices. 

NYHealth continues to embed equity-focused opportunities in grant programs. Across all programs, we are identifying ways to be intentional and explicit about racial health equity. 

Policy and Research

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Goal

Conceive and generate original research informing New York health policy issues

Progress

Published new research related to program priorities, including: 

Launched an interactive Care Across Communities dashboard that enables ZIP code-level analysis of primary care. Data were the basis of national and local research presentations. 

Provided expert testimony and public comments on a broad range of topics, including: 

What this means

NYHealth addresses critical health policy issues that affect New Yorkers by producing original and collaborative research. These efforts directly support the Foundation’s program priorities and grantmaking agenda.  

Through our original research, external presentations, public testimony, and public comments, we elevate awareness of critical health issues. The Foundation’s original research fosters meaningful connections with policymakers and stakeholders, ensuring that our work informs solutions to improve the health of all New Yorkers. 

Promoting Healthy Food and Healthy Lives

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Goal

Support food systems planning and capacity-building

Progress

Six regional/local food systems planning groups are turning their plans into action, including by 

  • Promoting nutrition incentive programs like Double Up Food Bucks and Fresh Connect;  
  • Making changes to support food access through transportation and accessibility planning and zoning codes to expand public gardens; and 
  • Increasing market opportunities for local growers.

What this means

Different regions and communities have different needs and strengths. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, priorities and strategies for implementation are tailored to local realities.  

Ongoing technical support increases the chance of long-term success and helps ensure that the full cohort maintains a coordinated approach throughout implementation. Regional and local plans can ultimately integrate into a coordinated statewide body of work. 

Promoting Healthy Food and Healthy Lives

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Goal

Maximize nutrition benefit programs

Progress

  • The Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center successfully advocated to clear a backlog of New York City Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applications that were not being processed in a timely way 

What this means

Advocacy activities raised issue awareness, organized SNAP applicants, and helped applicants connect with media and speak at City Council oversight hearings. These improvements resulted in more eligible New Yorkers receiving benefits to feed their families and meet their basic needs. 

Promoting Healthy Food and Healthy Lives

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Goal

Support healthier, culturally-responsive food in public institutions

Progress

  • Met Council is implementing and advocating for actions to increase kosher and halal foods in the emergency food system in 24 counties.  
  • The Correctional Association of New York is working to encourage healthier purchases and offerings in New York’s prisons in response to its report on food quality, safety, and access.     
  • The State’s Farm-to-School Program was codified into law, allocating $10 million a year to support farm-to-school programming. This work builds on years of advocacy by NYHealth grantee American Farmland Trust.  
  • Grantees Community Food Advocates and the Natural Resources Defense Council educated policymakers about the benefits of the Good Food Purchasing Program, which improves the quality of food in public institutions like day care centers, Head Start programs, and senior centers. The State legislature passed the Good Food NY bill, which would allow municipalities to make food purchases based on value and not only the lowest bid. 

What this means

Listening to the voices of populations that have not historically been heard helps inform better policy. New Yorkers of all backgrounds, cultures, and religions should have their food needs met. 

In 2024, policymakers passed bills to enable fresh produce procurement and set nutrition guidelines in State carceral settings. Addressing nutritional deficiencies, satiating hunger, and restoring human agency can improve physical and mental health and lead to safer facilities.  

The New York State Farm-to-School Program connects schools with local farms and food producers to strengthen local agriculture, improve student health, and promote regional food systems awareness.  

Updated procurement policy could affect hundreds of millions of meals served in public institutions.  

Promoting Healthy Food and Healthy Lives

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Goal

Promote Food Is Medicine interventions

Progress

  • God’s Love We Deliver is providing medically tailored meals to veterans with one or more behavioral health diagnoses. An additional grant will expand the program to reach 1,250 veterans and 250 caregivers and children. 
  • New York State’s 1115 Medicaid waiver, approved in January 2024, covers a range of nutrition services, following successful advocacy led by the Capital District’s Food is Medicine (FIM) coalition.

What this means

Population-tailored programs can demonstrate the role of nutrition in managing physical and behavioral health conditions. Building partnerships with local VA hospitals, veteran-serving community-based organizations, and others fosters an integrated approach to meeting veterans’ needs.  

Having successfully advocated for the inclusion of FIM services in New York’s Medicaid innovation program, groups are now working with providers and organizations across the State to implement these programs. Some of these organizations have limited understanding of FIM best practices. 

Improving Veterans’ Health

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Goal

Increase visibility of veterans’ health issues

Progress

  • Disseminated widely the findings of a comprehensive needs assessment of veterans in New York State that sheds light on veterans’ physical and behavioral health needs. Hosted a conference in Albany to present findings and secured broad and deep media coverage.  
  • Continued the Foundation’s role as the leading organization publishing research on New York veterans. 2024 publications included new findings on the use of Veterans Treatment Courts (VTCs) in New York State and New York City-level data on deaths of despair among veterans 
  • Participated in two work groups funded by the U.S. Department of Justice aimed at expanding and increasing the quality of VTCs across the State. 
  • Provided expert testimony on solutions to address gaps in services for military veterans and family members of veterans with PTSD. 

What this means

Veterans’ advocates and service providers throughout the State now have current, comprehensive, and detailed information on the health needs of veterans and the challenges they face, which will equip them to better serve the veteran community.  

NYHealth raised visibility of the issues veterans face, including through features in nearly a dozen media outlets and through expert testimony to policymakers in the State. Media coverage included stories about State investments in veterans’ health; firearm usage and veteran suicide; findings from the updated needs assessment; and services for minority veterans.

Improving Veterans’ Health

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Goal

Increase access to comprehensive community-based services for veterans and their families

Progress

Leveraged $4.7 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and New York City Council to expand best-in-class suicide prevention services to veterans statewide. 

What this means

Preventing veteran suicide will remain a priority for the Foundation, informed by recent data showing a sustained lack of improvement in this area. We continue to take a public health approach, with a particular focus on using peer mentors as a way to mediate suicidal ideation among high-risk veteran populations and community-based services for those in crisis.  

Strategic partnerships have fostered a more connected veteran community statewide and helped bring attention to and address the key health issues facing New York veterans.

Advancing Primary Care

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Goal

Expand primary care access and capacity 

Progress

  • Primary Care Development Corporation advocated for a larger share of New York’s health care spending to go toward primary care; formed a multi-sector statewide primary care coalition; and initiated a strategic communications effort to engage advocates and educate policymakers on key issues related to primary care.   
  • Manatt Health released a report recommending policy changes that will preserve and expand equitable access to virtual care. 
  • New York’s FY25 enacted budget extends coverage and payment parity of telehealth with in-person services through 2026. But it did not address an issue for telehealth delivered by community health centers. As it stands, if neither the provider nor the patient is physically on-site at a clinic, health centers effectively see their payment for that visit reduced by about two-thirds.  
  • The Community Health Care Association of New York State (CHCANYS) enabled 20 community health centers to quickly apply for and potentially leverage millions of dollars in federal New Access Points funding.   
  • Health Care For All New York (HCFANY) consumer advocacy coalition advanced policies to improve primary care access, affordability, and equity.  Advocacy contributed to eliminating out-of-pocket medical costs for pregnancy-related benefits on the Essential Plan and eliminating co-pays for insulin on State-regulated health insurance plans.

What this means

Although policy change to devote a larger share of health care dollars to primary care has gained increasing momentum and support, it has not been fully realized. A multi-pronged advocacy strategy among key State partners, including strategic communications and research, will continue to undergird this work.  

Collaborative research and engagement in policy discussions can help ensure telehealth is a lasting, accessible option across diverse communities. More work is needed to make New York a true leader in this area. 

The Foundation is empowering community health centers to secure resources for expanding primary care in underserved areas and providing tools, like the Care Across Communities dashboard, to monitor disparities in access and inform targeted solutions.  

Advancing Primary Care

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Goal

Advance racial health equity in primary care  

Progress

What this means

We strengthened our Primary Care equity strategy to improve racial equity in quality of care. We focused on one of the most glaring and persistent racial disparities: maternal death and complications among Black and other birthing people of color.   

We are supporting projects that build data infrastructure and tools to drive targeted, innovative approaches to improve health outcomes and patient experiences for people of color.  

Advancing Primary Care

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Goal

Elevate the Community Health Worker (CHW) and Medical Assistant (MA) workforce  

Progress

What this means

High-quality primary care is best delivered by a diverse team of professionals that work together and combine skills to address the needs of patients and communities. Because MAs and CHWs are often members of the communities they serve, they are well-positioned to build relationships with patients.   

New policies are supporting sustainable reimbursement for CHWs. In 2024, for the first time, New York State Medicaid and Medicare began reimbursing CHW services for select patient populations, but uptake has been extremely low. In response, NYHealth is helping (1) primary care providers to tap into these reimbursement sources and (2) CHWs and allies to advocate for needed changes.    

Proposals to expand MA scope of practice have been advanced but not yet enacted. NYHealth will continue to galvanize support for advocacy and policy-focused research to achieve change in New York State.  

Special Projects Fund

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Goal

Respond to emerging trends and timely health issues in communities across New York State

Progress

  • In 2024, NYHealth received 390 letters of inquiry through our Special Projects Fund open Request for Proposals (RFP)—a 40% increase over the previous year. More than two-thirds of applicants were from outside New York City; 13% of proposals were for statewide projects. 
  • Continued to play a lead role in a funders’ consortium that committed more than $2 million to the Keep New York Covered Initiative, a community outreach initiative led by the Community Service Society to help re-enroll nearly 9 million New Yorkers in health insurance coverage following the end of the Public Health Emergency. Between March 2023 and September 2024, 82% of eligible New York residents were re-enrolled for health coverage. New York is among the top five states for keeping families and children enrolled.
  • Supported rapid response to offer services to newly arrived New Yorkers. This work helped organizations screen for social and health needs for more than 7,000 people; provide technical assistance that enabled immigrant-serving groups to support health insurance enrollment and care navigation; and provide preventive services and screenings via a mobile clinic at shelter sites. 

What this means

The Special Projects Fund continues to serve as the responsive arm of the Foundation, allowing a wide range of organizations to apply for and receive funding. NYHealth staff met with health leaders and participated in regional gatherings across New York State to better understand local health needs and promote the Special Projects Fund RFP. These efforts increased applications from upstate and rural areas of the State that had been historically underrepresented in NYHealth funding. 

The Special Projects Fund represents a flexible source of funding that allows the Foundation to respond nimbly to urgent and emergent issues. Working with partners across sectors and across the State helps Foundation staff keep an ear to the ground about rapidly evolving issues.  

Special Projects Fund

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Goal

Support system-wide change

Progress

  • The Healthcare Association of New York State’s (HANYS) Age-Friendly Designation Initiative is transforming health care culture, practices, and policies in care settings to improve outcomes for older adult patients. New York is making significant progress toward its ambitious goal of designating 50% of health care settings as age-friendly sites.
  • Timely funding enabled the merger of two member agencies—The Coalition for Behavioral Health and Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers of New York State—to form InUnity Alliance in response to high rates of mental illness and opioid-related mortality. This new entity represents more than 250 addiction, mental health, and social service agencies that serve more than 800,000 New Yorkers.

What this means

Systems change often includes addressing overarching policies and practices in large health care and public health systems. Sustained investments and improvements take time.  

Funding consortiums, such as the one supporting HANYS, enable continued, ongoing funding to produce long-term outcomes for ambitious projects. Multi-year funding can be critical to larger-scale projects; it allows funding partners to meet regularly to discuss progress, problem-solve, and identify new opportunities to expand the project’s impact.   

Mergers and alliances can help reduce redundancies and streamline services. A unified organization is better positioned to drive and respond to change.   

Special Projects Fund

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Goal

Promote replication of innovative and equitable programs

Progress

  • The Reproductive Health Access Project convened primary care clinics and federally qualified health centers to improve provision of reproductive health care. The sites identified solutions to Medicaid billing challenges and malpractice coverage practices.
  • The Center for Health Workforce Studies launched a new user-friendly online portal to collect data on and improve provider recruitment and retention in federally-designated health care provider and primary care facility shortage areas.  

What this means

The Special Projects Fund supports investment in new and innovative projects with systems-oriented solutions that have wide-reaching potential for high-need populations. 

Pilot projects often encounter challenges in early phases, including provider uptake, reimbursement limitations, and low enrollment. Still, these pilots provide valuable opportunities to tailor elements of the program and provide specific education about identified challenges when scaling the model.  

Communications

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Goal

Increase the visibility, credibility, and influence of the Foundation and our grantees

Progress

Publishing 

  • Published 14 reports and 15 commentaries (blog posts, op-eds, letters to the editor).
  • Produced 13 grant outcome reports highlighting the lessons and outcomes of NYHealth-supported projects.

Traditional Media 

  • Received 40 media hits. 
  • Cosponsored the Association of Health Care Journalists annual conference. Held for the first time in New York City, the event highlighted NYHealth grantees through site visits and panel discussions. 

Convening 

  • Held 33 convenings, including large conferences on veterans’ health and healthy food. Hosted webinars on topics including primary care, telehealth, mental health, and the public health workforce. 

E-mail/Social Media 

  • Maintained more than 17,000 contacts on our e-mail lists. 
  • Averaged a 39% open rate (industry standard is 36%) and a click rate of 9% (industry standard is 2%) for e-mail blasts.
  • Nearly 7,000 Twitter/X followers and nearly 2,500 LinkedIn followers.

Website 

  • Website traffic increased by approximately 51% compared with 2023. 

What this means

A robust and proactive communications program is a fundamental part of the Foundation’s operating model. Communications shape the visibility, reputation, influence, and impact of the Foundation and the work supported through our grantmaking.

Media coverage of the Foundation’s work declined in 2024. We are working to adapt to the evolving media landscape, which includes a growing share of non-traditional outlets like newsletters and social media groups. 

Twitter/X remains our social media channel with the largest audience. We are continuing to monitor the landscape, invest more energy in LinkedIn, and secure accounts on alternative platforms like Threads and Bluesky. 

We engaged a consultant to help us with online advertising and search at the beginning of 2024. Traffic to the website increased substantially as a result. 

Finance

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Goal

Strong endowment/ investment performance

Progress

  • Performance in 2024 was strong. Investment return for the year was 11.2%.
  • As of December 31, 2024, the 3-year compound annual return on endowment investments was 4.9%, net of fees. 
  • Investment performance remains at the top quartile relative to comparative performance for the 3-year period ending September 30, 2024 (latest comparison available).1

Our returns since inception are above median.


1 Peer data are based on a survey conducted by Clearview Fiduciary Alliance.  

What this means

The Foundation’s assets today are higher than they were at inception, despite having spent $267 million on grants and operations.

The Foundation is monitoring signs of continued volatility in investment markets.

Finance

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Goal

Strong internal management and customer service

Progress

  • NYHealth was certified with another clean audit.
  • The average rating by grantees of NYHealth staff members’ responsiveness was of 6.51 (on a 7-point scale), placing NYHealth highly relative to peer foundations.²
  • In 2024, grantees received their initial payment within an average of 11 days of receiving an award notice. 

² Based on the 2022 Center for Effective Philanthropy Grantee Perception Survey. 

What this means

Receiving a clean audit each year reflects our commitment to operational efficiency and transparency.

Our goal is to continue to improve our customer service to grantees. Providing timely funding is especially important for smaller organizations working on time-sensitive issues.