It Takes a Village of Love and Support

Rx Kids is led by Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, a pediatrician, and director of the Michigan State University-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative. A nationally recognized child health researcher and advocate, Dr. Hanna-Attisha launched the community-partnered initiative in response to the Flint water crisis to improve outcomes for kids. She is also the Associate Dean for Public Health and C. S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and recognized as one of USA Today’s Women of the Century for her role in uncovering the Flint water crisis and leading recovery efforts. Dr. Hanna-Attisha is the author of the New York Times 100 most notable book, What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City. Grounded in community-based participation, Dr. Hanna- Attisha and the Pediatric Public Health Initiative work the many local and national partners to boldly improve child health equity and share best practices.

Luke Shaefer, Ph.D. is the Co-Director of Rx Kids and the Hermann and Amalie Kohn Professor of Social Justice and Social Policy at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. There he directs Poverty Solutions, a U-M presidential initiative that partners with communities to find new ways to prevent and alleviate poverty. Poverty Solutions has a proven track record of collaborating on novel evidence-based policy changes in the City of Detroit, with the State of Michigan, and nationally. The New York Times named Shaefer’s co-authored book, $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, one of 100 Notable Books of 2015, and he has received an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. The New York Times and TIME Magazine, among other outlets, have credited Shaefer’s collaborative research as one of the driving forces behind the expanded Child Tax Credit of 2021 that led to a historic decline in child poverty. Shaefer’s new coauthored book, The Injustice of Place, highlights poor communities like Flint, threading their common histories together and offering solutions to community resilience.

GiveDirectly is the first – and largest – nonprofit that sends money directly to those living in poverty. They believe people deserve the dignity to choose for themselves how best to improve their lives. GiveDirectly has been delivering cash to people living in poverty globally since 2009 and in the U.S. since 2017. Give Directly has extensive experience managing large, multi-stakeholder cash programs funded by private philanthropy, local governments, and the U.S. government.

In the last decade, GiveDirectly has delivered $580M to 1.3M recipients in 11 countries in the form of basic income and other unconditional cash transfers, including $250M to low-income households in the U.S. GiveDirectly is administering:

They have collaborated with research partners on 19 randomized control trials on cash transfers in the U.S. and internationally, including two ongoing studies on large-scale guaranteed income programs in the Chicago area. Overall, the findings broadly suggest that cash transfers can increase assets and earnings, improve food security and psychological well-being, and reduce the incidence of domestic violence.

Jim Ananich is President and CEO of the Greater Flint Health Coalition (GFHC). GFHC functions as collective impact organization to serve as the neutral backbone and convening entity to lead and coordinate collaborative efforts to improve population health status, reduce and prevent disease, improve the quality and cost effectiveness of the healthcare system, and reduce health disparities. The GFHC is composed of a broad partnership of leadership from public health, physicians, hospitals, health systems, health insurers, safety-net providers (including federally qualified health centers and community mental health), business, education, community-based organizations, nonprofits, government agencies, policymakers, organized labor, faith-based partners, and committed citizens. A Flint resident, Ananich previously served two-full terms leading the Senate Democratic Caucus. In this position – and even before – he found success advancing bipartisan legislation that helped workers through economic downtimes, families have access to healthy foods and clean water, and better resources for local communities to invest in services and infrastructure.