Giving Compass' Take:

• The Healthcare Anchor Network is a community of anchor institutions that commit to investing in place-based health solutions within their communities. 

• What health anchors are investing in the health of your neighborhood? How can donors get involved?

• Here are some insights into effective health funding.

Over the last two years, the Healthcare Anchor Network (HAN) has helped deepen our understanding of the role and potential of health systems, as anchor institutions in their communities, to address systemic economic and racial inequities.

The collective activities and learning of this health system-led collaboration that is exploring what it means to embrace the “anchor mission” is supported by The Democracy Collaborative, a research, field-building, and advisory nonprofit focused on building community wealth and expanding economic democracy.

Health care is uniquely positioned to serve as an anchor sector because of its evolving mission toward more holistically addressing community and well-being, its stable role as one of the largest, community-rooted employers, and its mostly nonprofit and public status. An anchor mission entails an intentional commitment to use an institution’s place-based economic power, and human and political capital, to strengthen the local economic eco-system and address economic inequities.

In addition to being large employers, health anchors are also among the largest purchasers and investors of capital in their communities. Nationally, health systems and universities have expenditures of more than $1 trillion annually, hold more than $500 million in investment assets, and employ more than 9 million people (Healthcare Anchor Network 2019). Their scale is enormous, and the potential to leverage their position to build stronger economies that prioritize equity, sustainability, and health and well-being is great.

Funders have already played significant roles in promoting the anchor mission movement, and can potentially do more to help emerging new efforts overcome internal and external barriers, such as the fear of taking risks and aligning senior leadership and boards (Justine Porter 2019).

Read the full article about healthcare anchor networks by Bich Ha Pham and David Zuckerman at Grantmakers In Health.