The Fund supports networks of state health policy decision makers to help identify, inspire, and inform policy leaders.
A bipartisan group of state health policymakers from both the executive and legislative branches who are focused on improving population health.
Networks of state officials, advocates, and others aiming to invest in and transform primary care.
A program dedicated to advancing state-based efforts to make health care more affordable for residents, employers, and states.
The Milbank Memorial Fund supports two state leadership programs for legislative and executive branch state government officials committed to improving population health.
A leadership development program for early and mid-career state government officials who are committed to improving the health of all people in their communities.
A leadership program for senior state government officials who are committed to improving population health.
The Fund focuses on creating an affordable health care system built on strong primary care and partnerships that improve health outcomes for all.
Improving state leaders’ ability to enact and implement evidence-based health policies.
Advancing policies that create a more prevention- and primary care-oriented health system.
Improving population health through policies that contain health care cost growth.
Our state health policy resources offer relevant data analysis and best practices.
The Fund publishes reports, issues briefs, and case studies on state health policy issues.
Short takes on health policy issues from Milbank staff and guest authors.
Insights from Milbank President Debra Lubar on state health policymaking.
Reported articles and Q&As on timely health policy issues, as well as foundation updates.
Milbank Memorial Fund and Milbank Quarterly webinars featuring state health policymakers and researchers.
Updates and expert contact information for reporters.
The Milbank Memorial Fund is a private foundation that works to improve population health and health equity.
In 1905, Elizabeth Milbank Anderson, a prominent philanthropist, established one of the first general purpose foundations, the Memorial Fund Association. The foundation was named in honor of her parents and to preserve her anonymity; it was renamed the Milbank Memorial Fund in 1921, following her death. Anderson’s gifts endowed the Fund with $10 million (or approximately $300 million in 2022).
The Fund’s articles of incorporation describe its purpose as the following: “To further secular and religious education among all classes; to care for the sick, the young, the aged and disabled; to minister to the needs of the poor; to improve the physical, mental and moral condition of humanity and generally advance charitable and benevolent objects.”
The Fund’s initial activities reflected Anderson’s strong interest in promoting public health and preventive health initiatives. In 1912, Anderson directed the Fund to make a gift of $650,000 to the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor to establish a Department of Social Welfare devoted to a wide range of public health activities, including sanitation, nutrition, and tuberculosis research and education. In its early years the Fund also supported a Harlem office of the New York Legal Aid Society; homes for tubercular families in the Vanderbilt Apartments on New York’s Upper East Side; research at the Saranac Lake Sanitarium; and the operating budgets of the Children’s Aid Society and the Milbank Memorial Public Baths on East 38th Street in New York City.
Anderson drew on a number of advisors, family members, and friends to serve as early board members, including Charles Milbank Cauldwell, Francis Kinnicutt, George Nichols, Albert G. Milbank, Albert J. Milbank, Edward W. Sheldon, and Howard Townsend. The first chief executive, John A. Kingsbury, led the Fund’s work in three public health demonstration projects in Syracuse, Cattaraugus County, and the Bellevue-Yorkville section of New York City.
Beginning with its founder, the Fund has benefited from the guidance of a succession of leaders who have served as presiding officers, chief executives, and/or members of its Boards.
For more than three decades, The Milbank Memorial Fund was known by its lion logo, designed by long-time Board chair Tony Milbank. In September 2026, the Fund launched a visual rebranding, with a new logo designed to reflect the organization’s role as a connector and trust source of evidence and inspiration for health leaders.
The Centennial Report, published in 2005, is a chronological survey of the work of the Fund during its first century. It highlights contributions such as the Fund-supported New York State Public Health Demonstration, the launch of The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly Bulletin (now The Milbank Quarterly), the Fund’s development of some of the first US public health surveys, and much more.
In “The Significance of the Milbank Memorial Fund for Policy: An Assessment at Its Centennial,” Daniel M. Fox, the Fund’s president emeritus, documents and seeks to explain the significance of the Milbank Memorial Fund for health policy and practice since its founding. He concluded, and the medical historians who reviewed the article before its publication in the Quarterly agreed, that the Fund has made its most important contributions by partnering with decision makers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to apply the best available scientific evidence and practical experience.
A special Centennial issue of The Milbank Quarterly reprints articles from the journal’s first eighty-three volumes that explore significant research in epidemiology and the policy sciences and its implications for policy and practice in health care and public/population health.
An archive of documents pertaining to the history of the Fund is available at the library of Yale University.
In 2020, amidst a national reckoning on race and inequality, Milbank Memorial Fund began a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion review that involved a full examination of the Fund’s history, including our regrettable involvement in the U.S. Public Health Service syphilis study. Our Racial Equity Statement of Purpose acknowledges and apologizes for Milbank Memorial Fund’s role in this shameful, racist study and outlines our organizational, programmatic, and communications commitments to racial equity. For more details about our efforts to make amends and commitment to advancing health equity, please visit the Racial Equity Statement of Purpose page.