Public Health Innovation Fund

Creating Public Health Social Enterprises

Abstract

The Public Health Fund (PHF), a private foundation and support organization to Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), has developed an internal process to recognize and fund new business models, strategic partnerships, entrepreneurship and other innovative ideas that leverage the PHMC’s work. This year, the Innovation Fund partnered with PHMC’s Organizational Development and Learning (ODL) division to create the Social Innovation and Public Health Enterprise Workshop, a lab environment focused on business thinking and critical development skills needed to evaluate the feasibility of, and launch, a scalable social enterprise. In addition to public grantmaking, PHF makes a set of internal investments annually to support key initiatives at PHMC, one of which is the Innovation Fund. The Innovation Fund reflects the principles that give direction and vision to PHF, like entrepreneurship, strategic partnerships and new models of revenue with the goal of building new business or leveraging the work PHMC is already doing.