Commonwealth Fund

History

In 1918, Anna M. Harkness founded the Commonwealth Fund with the broad mandate that it should do something that would benefit the welfare of mankind. The foundation was initially [Page 190]endowed with a gift of nearly $10 million. Edward Harkness, Anna M. Harkness's son, was the fund's first president. Both Edward and his mother were committed to building a responsive and socially concerned philanthropy, donating generously to the fund's endowment over the years. In fact, between 1918 and 1959, the Harkness family endowed more than $53 million to the fund.

From the 1920s through the 1940s, the fund helped develop the field of child guidance and supported public health departments in communities around the country, and the construction of rural hospitals. In 1925, the fund launched the Commonwealth Fund Fellowships, an international program that brought young professionals to the United States for extended studies and travel. The Commonwealth Fund Fellowships later became known as the Harkness Fellowships.

After World War II and into the 1980s, the fund concentrated on addressing the needs of communities that lacked healthcare services. It did so in several ways: The fund assisted in developing new medical schools, which addressed the issue of physician shortage, and medical school curricula. It also contributed to bringing healthcare to underserved communities, including troubled urban areas. The fund played a role in bringing attention to the problems facing elderly Americans as well as those faced by academic health centers. In addition, the fund helped stimulate several programs and movements, including youth-mentoring programs and the patient-centered care movement of the 1980s.

Since 1995, the Commonwealth Fund has focused on healthcare issues, specifically health insurance coverage, access to care, and improving healthcare quality and efficiency. Through its international base, the fund is able to encourage communication and collaborations on health policies and practices among developed countries.

As was the Harkness family's intent, the Commonwealth Fund has sought to identify promising practices and solutions that could help the United States achieve a high-performing healthcare system.

Activities

The fund operates programs in the following areas: healthcare quality improvement and efficiency, future of health insurance, Medicare's future, high-performance health system, patient-centered primary care, state innovations, quality of care for underserved populations, child development and preventive care, quality of care for frail elders, minority health policy, and health policy and practice. Additionally, the fund administers several fellowship programs, including the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy, Harkness Fellowship in Health Care Policy, Packer Policy Fellowship, Australian-American Health Policy Fellowship, and the Ian Axford Fellowship in Policy. The Commonwealth Fund also disseminates information, knowledge, and experience—all in an effort to influence policymakers to achieve the fund's goal of a high-performing healthcare system.

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