Here’s How the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Is Growing Three Partnerships to Boost Global Health
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The three NYC-based grantees include Rockefeller University. Mariusz Lopusiewicz/shutterstock
While the Stavros Niarchos Foundation leaned into new partnerships in its pandemic funding, its most recent commitments center on existing relationships. In June, it turned to three long-term New York-based partners to develop and share the kind of expertise that can make global health systems more responsive to need and less dependent on the circumstances of chance that often dictate the quality of care, like who you are or where you live.
The total $205 million commitment will create a knowledge hub at Rockefeller University to stem infectious disease, another at Columbia University to advance genomic-based precision medicine, and a third at the Child Mind Institute to lift barriers to mental health treatment. The funding reflects the foundation’s belief in the interconnectedness of physical and mental health, and in the ways both kinds of health challenges impact individuals and humanity writ large.
Here’s more on the foundation and the three partnerships boosted by its recent support.
SNF and health
Founded with an estimated $12 billion in proceeds from the estate of Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is one of the world’s leading private global philanthropies.
Over roughly a quarter-century, it has granted more than $3.4 billion to nonprofits in more than 135 countries toward its stated mission of building lasting societal gains. It generally funds in four fields: arts and culture, education, health and sports, and social welfare.
SNF is a well-established funder in global health. To date, it’s directed more than a half-billion dollars and 100 grants toward meeting the goals of its SNF Health Initiative, which was founded on a public-private partnership with the Greek Ministry of Health and aims to raise access to quality healthcare for all Greeks. Though the initiative focused solely on Greece at first, the scope has since expanded to other countries, including the United States, Spain and Jordan. SNF’s latest $205 million commitment is expected to allow significant growth.
Two of the three new grants center on mental health. Mental health funding has been a “core element” of SNF’s portfolio for decades, both through specific grants and as elements of funding initiatives with larger goals. Commitments have included a five-year grant to the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services (MHPSS) to support refugees on the Greek island of Lesvos, and support for a Sandy Hook Promise program that raises awareness of behaviors that can trigger violence.
Mental health interventions were also featured in the foundation’s seven rounds of COVID-19 funding, which committed $100 million to meet local communities’ urgent needs across five continents and 50 countries. They included a national psychological support helpline in Greece and grants to support the mental wellness of Alzheimer’s caregivers through CaringKind and the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) in the United States.
SNF’s latest grants seek, in part, to “share New York-based expertise around the world,” and deepen three partnerships with the following institutions.
Rockefeller University
A $75 million grant to create the SNF Institute for Infectious Disease Research at Rockefeller University builds on the foundation’s COVID work and on its existing commitment to a university known for biomedical research.
In 2014, SNF made a $75 million gift to Rockefeller University that was matched by an equal sum from David Rockefeller. Their partnership created the Stavros Niarchos Foundation — David Rockefeller River Campus, which expanded the university’s grounds along the East River in Manhattan by two acres and funded the construction of several new buildings, including an outdoor amphitheater and facilities for state-of-the-art labs. In the early days of the pandemic, SNF also supported round-the-clock COVID-related research at the university.
The new institute is expected to provide a framework for international scientific collaboration, one that can turn research innovations into practical health benefits and quickly respond to pathogens that pose cause for concern.
Columbia University
Another $75 million grant will create the SNF Center for Precision Psychiatry and Mental Health at Columbia University. The funding will catalyze the use of genome-based precision medicine to diagnose, treat and prevent psychiatric disorders. The emerging approach is expected to improve both individual outcomes and the overall standard of care for those conditions.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation has been a long-term supporter of public outreach initiatives at Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, a home for pioneering work in understanding how the brain develops, performs, endures and recovers. The SNF Brain Insight Lectures there promoted an understanding of the biology of the mind and the complexity of human behavior — for instance, with a lecture discussing how anatomic vulnerabilities form a pathway to Alzheimer’s.
Child Mind Institute
A $55 million grant will fund the creation of the SNF Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute, one of SNF’s primary partners on mental health. Ever since CMI was created in 2010, its partnership with SNF has involved a steady stream of grants and initiatives, including a $15 million grant made in April of this year to support an ambitious five-year, public-private partnership to expand mental health support capacity in Greece. Like the latest investment, the collaboration is expected to share international best practices and tap CMI’s expertise in child and adolescent mental health to improve overall outcomes.
The partners hope the new funding will dramatically expand access to mental healthcare for children and adolescents worldwide by combating what they consider to be the three greatest barriers: societal stigma, a lack of access to information, and insufficient quality of care.
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Though the three grants differ in their goals and complexion, SNF co-President Andreas Dracopoulos pointed to their collective power to achieve quality care. “The more we learn about health, the more we learn that everything is connected,” he said. New approaches to addressing major health challenges the world faces today must “also be [connected] across disciplines and across borders.”
