The Georgia Healthy Family Alliance (GHFA) Board of Trustees is pleased announce that Loy “Chip” Cowart, III MD will serve as Chair of the “Your Giving is Great Medicine” five year capital campaign to expand the reach and funding of the Community Health Grant program and Tar Wars in communities where Georgia Academy of Family Physicians (GAFP) members live and serve.
With a challenge investment of $1,000,000 from the GA Academy, GHFA is seeking to raise an additional $3 million to sustain funding for essential healthcare initiatives like the 38 GAFP member sponsored community health grant projects that have been funded since 2012 for projects including obesity prevention, chronic disease management, women’s health screenings and more.
To date, the Alliance has awarded more than $163,000 to GAFP member sponsored community health projects. Last year, GHFA received more than 25 applications from members with available resources to fund just nine of the projects. Overall grant funding in 2016 had to be reduced to $3500 per applicant, as opposed to the $5,000 per applicant available in previous years.
The need and growing demand for these vital programs is real. The Kaiser Foundation ranks Georgia fifth in the nation in uninsured residents with 19 percent of the population – nearly 2 million Georgians- lacking health insurance. Charitable health initiatives supported by GHFA serve as essential providers of care to uninsured families and strengthen the state’s healthcare safety net by fostering collaborative partnerships.
Currently in its “quiet phase,” the five year “Your Giving is Great Medicine” capital campaign seeks to further the organizational capacity of the Alliance by securing funding from the health care community at large, foundations and businesses to increase the number of Community Health Grants and Tar Wars presentations in the years ahead.
More campaign details and information on how you can join us to expand the reach of these vital community health initiatives is forthcoming. We hope you will join us in our efforts to sustain the long term capacity of GHFA programs. GHFA staff will be reaching out to you in the coming weeks to share our progress and gain your support.
The time to prepare for the future is now. And, working together and investing together, GHFA can continue our work toward fulfilling our mission of ensuring healthy futures for thousands of underserved men women and children in Georgia.
Founded in 1987, the Georgia Healthy Family Alliance, formerly known as the Foundation of the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians (GAFP), is the philanthropic arm of the GAFP and a charitable public foundation recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.