SOCIAL VENTURES
portfolio
THE PROBLEM -
Health outcomes are more impacted by social, environmental and behavioral factors than genetics and access to healthcare combined. Billions of dollars invested in complex and siloed healthcare and social service systems still leave a disproportionate number of people and communities already living in oppressive poverty with unmet essential needs like heat, housing, food, healthcare and employment.
SOLUTION INVESTMENT -
THE PROBLEM -
Approximately 20 percent of health outcomes are tied to medical care, whereas some 70 percent are tied to the "social determinants of health" – access to food, secure housing, stable employment, education. The Physicians Foundation, which represents physicians in every state and medical specialty, found 88 percent of doctors reported that poverty or other social factors seriously impede their patients' health.
SOLUTION INVESTMENT -
THE PROBLEM -
Globally, health care is responsible for more than 4.4% of net global climate emissions, ironically making it a significant contributor to the climate crisis and its myriad health impacts. At the same time, the world’s insufficient resiliency to major weather events and the shifting burden of disease creates unmanageable risk for communities and economies.
SOLUTION INVESTMENT -
THE PROBLEM -
Children enter our foster care system at an alarming rate - 1 in 17 children in the U.S. spend part of their childhood in foster care. Black and Native American children are 2-3 times more likely to enter foster care. This child welfare crisis contributes to society’s most intractable problems: 70% of individuals in the juvenile and criminal justice systems, 60% of youth who are sex trafficked and 33% of homeless young adults were previously in the child welfare system. At least 1 in 8 children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year. Child maltreatment is costly. According to the Center for Disease Control, the estimated total lifetime economic burden of child abuse and neglect, based on one year of confirmed cases, is approximately $124 billion.
SOLUTION INVESTMENT -
THE PROBLEM -
The wave of gentrification rapidly spilling across many American cities has displaced many long-time residents and the rising housing costs are placing a major burden on working families. Unaffordable workforce housing creates untenable stresses on workers who are critical to any community- teachers, nurses, retail, restaurant and transit workers- as well as many small businesses.
SOLUTION INVESTMENT -
