Somewhat over a decade ago, Frank Karel, who was then the vice president for communications of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the two of us met in a small office at the Foundation and pondered how the Foundation might get reports and evaluations out of the bottom drawers of program officers' filing cabinets and into the hands of a broader public. We wanted to share knowledge of the Foundation's grantmaking and other activities with health policy makers and shapers; government health officials; staff members and trustees of foundations; health policy and program experts; people in the field working to improve health and health care; health policy re-searchers; members of the media; and the lay public interested in health or philanthropy.

From this and subsequent conversations involving many others at the Foundation emerged the idea of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology. Our intention was, and is, primarily to give the broad array of readers mentioned above an understanding of what the Foundation has done to improve the health and health care of Americans, why it chose the paths that it did, and what lessons have been learned from its experience. Secondarily, we hope to demystify the Foundation by giving readers a glimpse of how decisions are made at the Foundation's headquar-ters in Princeton, New Jersey. We commission an array of writers—from professional journalists to program evaluators to Foundation staff members—and instruct them to write as honest and objective (and readable) an assessment of their topic as possible.

In its ten years, the Anthology has offered chapters on the range of ways in which the Foundation has addressed the nation's health and health care needs. Here is one way of illustrating the topics covered in the Anthology series:

Health Insurance Coverage and Health Care Policy

• National Access-to-Care Surveys (1997)
• The Foundation's Efforts to Cover the Uninsured (Vol. IX)
• Health Insurance for Children (2000)
• The Health Tracking Initiative (Vol. VI)
• Improving State Government Capacity in Health Reform (1997)
• Health Insurance at the Local Level: The Communities In Charge Program (Vol. X)
• The National Health Policy Forum (Vol. VII)

Access to Health Care Services and Cost Containment

• Safety-Net Programs (Vol. IX)
• The Medicaid Managed Care Program (Vol. IX)
• Academic Medical Centers (1998–1999)
• Managed Care (2001)
• Workers' Compensation (2001)
• Medical Malpractice (1997)
• Public Health: The Turning Point Program (Vol. VIII)
• Treating Tuberculosis (Vol. V)
• Dental Care (2001)
• Emergency Medical Services (2000)
• The Homeless Prenatal Program (Vol. VII)
• The Homeless Families Program (1997)
• Supportive Housing (Vol. X)
• The Southern Rural Access Program (Vol. X)
• Prevention Through Regional Collaboration: The SPARC Program (Vol. X)
• The Foundation's Efforts to Contain Health Care Costs (Vol. VII)
• Volunteer Physicians: The Reach Out Program (1997)

The Health Care Workforce

• The Health Care Workforce (1997)
• The Community Health Leadership Awards Program (Vol. VI)
• The Health Policy Fellowships Award Program (Vol. V)
• Building Capacity in the Social Sciences (Vol. VI)
• The Clinical Scholars Program (Vol. VII)
• Attracting Health Professionals to Underserved Areas: The Practice Sights Program (Vol. VI)
• Increasing Minorities in the Health Professions (Vol. VII)
• The Minority Medical Education Program (now the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program) (2000)

Children and Adolescents

• The Foundation's Children's Health Initiatives (2001)
• School-Based Health Care (2000)
• The Nurse Home Visitation Program (Vol. V)
• Immunization Registries: The All Kids Count Program (1997)
• Mental Health Services for Young People (1998–1999)
• Regional Perinatal Care Networks (2001)
• Preventing Injuries to Children (Vol. VII)
• The Chicago Program for Violence Prevention (Vol. VIII)
• Students Run LA (Vol. IX)

Nursing

• The Foundation's Nursing Initiatives (Vol. VIII)
• Strengthening Hospital Nursing (1998–1999)
• Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants (1998–1999)

Long-Term Care

• Long-Term Care Insurance: The Partnership for Long-Term Care (Vol. X)
• Consumer Choice in Long-Term Care (Vol. V)
• The Teaching Nursing Home Program (Vol. VII)
• Rural Hospitals and Long-Term Care: The Swing Bed Program (Vol. VI)
• Financing Affordable Long-Term Care Housing: The Coming Home Program (2000)
• Integrating Acute and Long-Term Care for the Elderly (2001)
• Service Credit Banking (Vol. V)

End-of-Life Care

• Research into End-of-Life Care: SUPPORT (1997)
• The Foundation's Programs to Improve Care toward the End-of-Life (Vol. VI)

Chronic Health Conditions

• Improving Chronic Illness Care (Vol. X)
• The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care (Vol. X)
• Improving Health in an Aging Society (Vol. IX)
• Unmet Need in the Community: The Springfield Study (1997)
• Programs to Address Chronic Illness (1998–1999)
• Adult Day Centers (2000)
• The Program on Chronic Mental Illness (2000)
• AIDS (Vol. V)
• Community Volunteers: The Faith in Action Program (1998–1999)

Tobacco Control

• The Foundation's Tobacco-Control Strategy (Vol. VIII)
• Tobacco Policy Research (1998–1999)
• The National Spit Tobacco Program (1998–1999)
• The Sundance Conference and Its Aftermath (2000)
• Smoking Cessation (Vol. VI)
• The National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids (Vol. VI)
• The Smokeless States Program (Vol. VIII)
• Fighting Back (Vol. VII)
• Join Together and CADCA (Vol. VII)
• Free to Grow (Vol. IX)

Alcohol Use and Abuse

• Alcohol and Work: Results from a Corporate Drinking Study (1998–1999)
• Programs to Improve the Health of Native Americans (Vol. V)
• Recovery High School (Vol. V)
• Fighting Back and Healthy Nations in Gallup, New Mexico (Vol. VI)
• Reducing Underage Drinking (Vol. VIII)

Communications Initiatives

• The Foundation's Radio and Television Grants (1998–1999)
• Sound Partners for Community Health (2001)
• The Media and Health Systems Change (1997)
• The Covering Kids Communication Campaign (Vol. VI)

Inside the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Early Years (Vol. VIII)
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: 1974–2002 (Vol. X)
• An Interview with Steven Schroeder (Vol. VI)
• Making Health an Equal Partner to Health Care (2001)
• Adopting the Substance Abuse Goal (1998–1999)
• Program-Related Investments (Vol. V)
• Grantmaking in New Jersey (Vol. V)
• The Foundation's Research Strategies (2000)
• The Foundation's Communications Strategies (2001)
• The Foundation's National Programs (Vol. VIII)
• Responding to Emergencies: 9/11, Bioterrorism, and Natural Disasters (Vol. VII)
• Health, Health Care, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: 1996–2006 (Vol. X)
• Terrance Keenan: An Appreciation (Vol. IX)

Philanthropy

• Public Scrutiny of Foundations and Charities (Vol. IX)
• Partnerships Among Foundations (2001)
• The Local Initiative Funding Partners Program (2000)

Other Topics

• Reflections on the book, On Doctoring (Vol. V)
• The National Health and Social Life Survey (1997)

In our introductions to some of the volumes, we have tried to tie the strands together and offer an overview of what the chapters mean for health and health care and/or for philanthropy. We have done this, in particular, in our introductions to the 2001 volume ("Grantmaking Insights from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology"), Volume VII ("Observations on Grantmaking from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology Series") and Volume IX ("Still Swinging for the Philanthropic Fences?"). Additionally, the Anthology series provides a venue for the Foundation's president and CEO to transmit his or her thoughts on substantive matters to a wide audience. Steven Schroeder's foreword to the 1998–1999 volume addressed the core values of the Foundation. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey used the pages of Volume IX to discuss the "five C's" of effective philanthropy and of Volume X to share her ideas on what it takes to make a great foundation.

Taken collectively, the volumes of the Anthology present a relatively comprehensive picture of what the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has done and is doing to improve health and health care. It is important to present this picture, for just as foundations must be financially accountable to the public, so, too, should they be accountable for the programs they fund and activities they carry out. If the Anthology serves as a vehicle through which the Foundation is programmatically accountable to the public, then we, as editors, can feel that we have met—in part at least—the challenge that faced us when we talked with Frank Karel in a small Foundation office more than a decade ago.

San Francisco Princeton, New Jersey May, 2006

Stephen L. Isaacs James R. Knickman Editors