Throughout the conference, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been pointed to again and again as an innovator who is embracing transparency. Guess what? They have a blog:
Pioneering Ideas was launched in 2006 by the Pioneer Portfolio, the grantmaking area within RWJF charged with scouting innovative ideas that may drive breakthrough improvements in the future of health and health care. Pioneer looks to support unconventional, often higher-risk projects that go beyond incremental improvements to seek transformative change. You’ll come across several in browsing the blog – posts highlight projects that are redesigning the personal health records of the future, outlining new policy approaches to combat antibiotic resistance, and applying video games to improving health, to name a few.
Included under that umbrella of innovation is room to test new models of doing philanthropy. For instance, you’ll read below that we’re launching the second in a series of online, open-source idea competitions with Ashoka’s Changemakers initiative. "Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care: Solutions People Want," kicks off May 2…
I’ve blogged on disruptive innovation before – the area continues to intrigue me as ripe with opportunity for philanthropy. In my view, what distinguishes philanthropies from charities or government organizations is that we possess the vision, assets and staying power to drive this type of transformative change. We also know from experience how to discover, test and leverage fresh "disruptive innovations" of our own.
This is philanthropy as it should be – summoning the forces of disruptive innovation and retooling to improve the health, health care and quality of life for everyone in America.