The Aspen Institute

For over 20 years, the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) has funded nonprofit journalism to help strengthen the media’s capacity to cover health policy in California. The goal of this investment: to ensure that CHCF’s audiences have access to timely, relevant information about the most pressing issues related to the health care and policy landscape. In 2019, the foundation engaged the Aspen Planning and Evaluation Program (APEP) to assess its health journalism grantmaking. The assessment aimed to help CHCF more clearly articulate the strategic framework and criteria for its journalism body of work; assess the effectiveness of these grants; and inform CHCF’s internal discussions about potential refinements to its journalism grantmaking strategy. The findings and recommendations in this public report, drawn from the internal report that APEP prepared for CHCF, are intended to contribute to knowledge sharing and field building among a broader audience of stakeholders in journalism grantmaking.