Be part of a national effort to shape the future of health
Author: Ceil Erickson, Director, Nonprofit Relations
Seattle Foundation encourages everyone in the Puget Sound region to be part of a nationwide effort to design a bold, new future for health. Participation is easy and involves watching two videos and taking a brief survey. Contribute your ideas now!
This survey is part of FORESIGHT, a partnership of 17 philanthropies from across the United States, including Seattle Foundation. The initiative is built on the principle that everyone deserves to enjoy good health and well-being, and we need fresh ideas and new systems to get us there.
We know that the U.S. health system is broken. Our country spent $3.5 trillion on health care in 2017 but Americans live shorter, sicker lives than people in many countries that spend much less. We also have glaring health inequities that leave Black, Brown, and Indigenous people with greater health threats and lower life expectancies. COVID-19 and its disproportionate impact on BIPOC communities have made these inequities even more clear.
It’s time to rethink what it means for Americans to be healthy—today, tomorrow, 10, 20, and 30 years from now—and then build a system to get us there. Seattle Foundation is excited to be part of this unprecedented process.
The FORESIGHT effort kicked off by collaborating with professional futurists to examine the big forces that will impact health in the coming decades. They identified game-changing trends and emergent issues like pandemics, climate change, and powerful technologies like AI and gene editing that will change our world in unexpected ways.
Now, FORESIGHT is listening to thousands of people across the country to gauge their reactions to the futurists’ predictions and record their hopes, fears, and dreams for health. The FORESIGHT team is looking for fresh ideas to shape the best possible health outcomes for everyone. For the ideas to be bold and effective, they must include a diversity of voices. FORESIGHT especially wants to hear from people who are rarely consulted in conversations about the future of health, but most impacted by the inequities of our current system.
Seattle Foundation’s partners and the communities they serve can add their voices to this effort. The online survey is open until August 31st, and both the videos and survey are available in English, Spanish, Somali, Mandarin, and French.
Starting later this year, FORESIGHT will take the insights gathered from this process to a fall national convening to shape a collective vision for health and well-being. Then FORESIGHT will work with organizations across the country to make this vision a reality. This will require new partnerships and mindsets, a different allocation of resources, and a radical openness to experimentation. We want to ensure that regional perspectives from the Puget Sound are front and center in this national vision and the work that follows.
Seattle Foundation is excited to be part of this effort to make our health system smarter, more effective, and more equitable. Join us!