Fannie E. Rippel Foundation

The mission of the Morristown, New Jersey-based Fannie E. Rippel Foundation is to serve as a catalyst for new ways of thinking about our health system — to achieve better health, better care, and lower costs. Actively engaging leaders in and outside the sector who take a systems-based approach to redesign has been integral to carrying out Rippel's vision. The Foundation Center asked Rippel President and CEO Laura K. Landy:

Given the Rippel Foundation's focus on and experience in rethinking the health care system, are there opportunities
for other grantmakers working on health care issues to align their work with yours so that your combined efforts serve the field
more effectively?

"What has been most exciting is the growing interest in the approach to change embodied in our key initiative, ReThink Health. New ideas — such as conferences, distance learning programs, and a wider array of training programs — are on the agenda both for reaching more communities and supporting leaders. In addition, a growing list of case studies and research projects have been identified to help our collective learning and to expand our reach. We are also exploring growing hands-on efforts in new regions across the country as well as deeper commitment in some of the communities we are now engaged with. One of the more effective strategies has been to partner with other foundations on this work, including the Peterson Foundation, which helped support two national conferences, and the California HealthCare Foundation, which is now partnering with us on the system dynamics model and game — a project in which the Rippel Foundation is collaborating with three preeminent, MIT-trained experts to develop a simulation game that will enable health and health care stakeholders to imagine, experience, and better shape the future. We certainly welcome the opportunity for collaboration with anyone who shares our values and interests. In addition, we appreciate the importance of foundations as key players in the system of regional change and invite a broader conversation of how we can all look more systemically and strategically at the impact of our work in a way that leverages the intrinsic motivation in communities and respects regional and cultural variation.

"Our work has evolved through the recognition that we don't have the answers, health and health care are local, sustainable change must emerge from the community, and that new ideas can often be found in places most people don't think to look. As a result, we have sought to build an active learning organization that takes a cross-boundary approach to finding the best solutions to health and health care transformation. We recognize this will not be done easily, nor quickly, and have embraced a long-term vision for achieving change. We recognize the value of experimentation and failure, as well as the importance of committing to partners who we believe can make a difference. As our first president, Julius A. Rippel said, 'We must have substantially new manners of thinking to enable mankind to bridge the gap between the things that have been and the things which will be.' He also said that a foundation had the responsibility to take risk. We honor these words every day in the hope that we might contribute to the true innovation — not improvement — that will be required to improve health and redesign our health system for our children, and for their children."