Dear friends,

It’s my pleasure to hand over this month’s newsletter greeting to my colleague, HealthBegins Vice President of Learning and Innovation, Glasha Marcon. Enjoy!

Best,

Rishi Manchanda, MD, MPH.

Imagine a hospital in a neighborhood where housing programs are severely underfunded and overwhelmed by demand. The hospital provides grant funding to support those programs. That’s good—and necessary.

But the hospital also holds significant long-term financial assets invested in the market. Those dollars are working, just not necessarily in ways that advance the hospital’s mission.

Some of those assets could be aligned with community health and housing stability. They could be invested in affordable housing funds, community development financial institutions, or other vehicles that strengthen local economic resilience—all to fuel the outcome of improved health.

So why aren’t they?

Often, the answer is simple: because that’s just the way things have been done.

We’ve inherited a model where grantmaking advances mission and endowments maximize return. The two sit side by side, rarely interacting. But that separation isn’t inevitable. It’s a habit.

And habits can change.

On February 19, HealthBegins—alongside the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Social Impact Program and the Common Health Coalition—gathered 60 leaders with one shared goal: To unlock and align financing and capital flows for the places, populations, and programs that need them most.

Throughout the day, I heard about practical, scalable innovations already underway. (You’ll find more highlights and insights from that day in the recording of our recent webinar.) What struck me most was not just the creativity of the approaches, but the fact that many were happening without regulatory mandates. Leaders are choosing to do this work.

One foundation leader shared how over the past year, their organization re-examined 95% of assets not allocated to grantmaking. They made the decision to direct 5% of those assets toward impact investing. The remaining 90% stayed invested in the market—but in ways more closely aligned with the foundation’s mission and values.

They weren’t required to do this. They chose to. Among the convening attendees was Multiplier Advisors, which is helping more foundations do the same.

We also heard about the Healthcare Anchor Network, whose members commit to “intentionally aligning core business functions—including hiring, purchasing, and investing—with community needs.” The network encourages members to place 1% of assets under management into community impact investing as part of a broader strategy to build economic mobility and resilient local economies.

Again, there is no regulatory compulsion. So why do members participate? Because mission alignment is not just a compliance exercise. It is a values choice.

This conversation made me reflect on my own journey to “put my money where my mouth is.” At the individual level, many of us eventually ask: Are my investments aligned with what I say I care about?

At the organizational level, HealthBegins made a similar commitment when we chose to become a Certified B Corporation. We weren’t required to do so. But we wanted to encode our values in ways that would persist.

Many leaders and institutions have intrinsic motivation to do good. Sometimes that’s enough to spark change. But sometimes we need a playbook. Sometimes we need accountability. Sometimes we need standards that normalize new behavior and encode our values so they outlast us.

What excited me most at this convening was the realization that these early efforts are happening voluntarily, but could be amplified through industry standards, shared accountability, and local policy. Imagine something akin to B Corp Certification or 1% for the Planet—but focused specifically on aligning assets under management with a healthcare mission.

These are precisely the types of innovations participants of the Convening are propagating.

The good news is this: you don’t need to wait for new guidelines or certifications to begin. You can start with your own assets. Whether you’re an individual with a savings account, a foundation trustee, a health system leader, or a board member, you can begin by asking:

• What am I currently invested in?

• What outcomes matter to me?

• What tradeoffs am I willing to make?

• Where could I shift even 1–5% to align more closely with my values?

To learn more and support broader action, join the Coalition for Health Equity Investments and Financing, a catalyst platform to carry insights from the Feb. 19 convening forward.

When enough institutions begin reinvesting even a small portion of their assets in ways that advance community health and equity, that behavior starts to feel normal. And once it becomes the norm, the capital flows follow.

We are not stuck in the current model. We are simply accustomed to it. The question is not whether we can align more of our assets with our mission. The question is whether we will.

Best,

Glasha Marcon