**Traditional Healthcare Funding is Broken. Here is How We Fix It. By Gareth Presch **
CEO & Founder, World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS) & Global Social Prescribing Alliance
The math behind global healthcare no longer works.
We are currently trapped in a reactive, expensive loop of “sick-care” pouring billions into treating advanced illnesses, managing systemic workplace burnout, and reacting to downstream health crises. Meanwhile, frontline, preventative community programs that stop these crises from happening in the first place are constantly left fighting for scraps of short-term, volatile funding.
The traditional funding pipeline for public health is broken. If we want to change health outcomes, we have to change how we finance them.
Today, the World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS) is launching a global framework designed to do exactly that: The 1% for Health Campaign.
The Ask is Simple. The Impact is Systemic.
The premise is straightforward, inspired by successful corporate philanthropy models like 1% for the Planet. We are asking corporate partners, institutional banks, and major financial organizations to pledge 1% of their annual corporate profits (or 1% of dedicated CSR/Impact budgets) directly to addressing social inequalities through validated, holistic community health frameworks.
We aren’t asking the corporate sector to take a gamble on unproven ideas. Over the past decade, WHIS has built and validated frontline health ecosystems across a global network—from youth mental health literacy to workforce resilience and healthy ageing.
By channeling a predictable, 1% stream of corporate capital through our financial vehicle, the World Health Service (WHS), and our US 501(c)(3) public charity partner (Legacy Global Programs, EIN: 20-8099462), we are creating a transparent, tax-deductible pathway for institutional capital to solve real-world inequities.
Think Globally, Deliver Locally: The WHIS Chapter Network
The greatest challenge of macro-philanthropy is ensuring that capital doesn’t dissolve into administrative overhead, but actually reaches the frontline. We solve this through our established Global Chapter Network spanning the UK, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, the Nordic countries, India, the USA, and Argentina.
Our active local chapters provide an unparalleled vehicle for scaling. They ensure that your 1% contribution is managed by leaders who live in the target communities, understand local nuances, and guarantee that the social impact remains intensely local.
Furthermore, for institutional partners, banks, and family offices looking to establish permanent community roots, we work directly with you through our chapter infrastructure to create localized endowment funds. This allows your 1% profit pledges to be invested into a permanent, income-generating capital base, ensuring your organization finances local community health equity not just for this fiscal year, but for generations to come.
Bridging Macro Research and Frontline Disability Support
Supported by this global network of clinical experts and local chapters, the 1% for Health Campaign deploys capital to advance research and delivery models for:
- Neurodegenerative Diseases (MND & Dementia): Supporting urgent new research into Motor Neuron Disease (MND/ALS) and Dementia, while deploying specialized community care pathways to support families through the immense economic and emotional strain of these conditions.
- Cancer & Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs): Stemming the global tide of chronic illnesses through integrated lifestyle medicine, early detection initiatives, and equity of care access.
- Disability & Inclusion Campaigns: Funding localized campaigns that actively dismantle institutional barriers, ensuring individuals with physical and cognitive disabilities have full access to equitable healthcare, employment, and social infrastructure.
The Power of Social Prescribing: Prescribing a Life, Not Just Medicine
Through our leadership at the Global Social Prescribing Alliance alongside the World Health Organization (WHO), this campaign directly funds a structured, non-clinical ecosystem. Social prescribing connects individuals directly to community-based assets to address the root social determinants of health.
[ YOUR 1% PROFIT PLEDGE ]
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ GLOBAL SOCIAL PRESCRIBING │
└──────────────┬──────────────┘
│
┌─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
[ GREEN ] [ BLUE ] [ ARTS ]
Nature-Based Care Water-Based Healing Creative Expression
(Forest Bathing/Gardens) (Mindfulness/Swimming) (Music/Art Therapy)
│ │ │
├─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
▼ ▼ ▼
[ PHYSICAL ] [ COMMUNITY ] [ PRACTICAL ]
Tailored Movement Reducing Isolation Housing, Debt Advice,
(Yoga, Dance, Walking) (Volunteering/Clubs) & Food Security
By backing this multi-spectrum matrix, corporate capital funds a genuinely holistic prescription for human wellbeing—proven to reduce avoidable GP appointments by up to 40% and deliver an extraordinary social return on investment.
Radical Integrity: Moving Beyond “Feel-Good” Philanthropy
The 1% for Health Campaign is built on absolute operational accountability, clearly separating structural delivery from local mobilization:
- Core Structural Funding: Direct profit allocations allow our regional chapters to deploy full-time, dedicated professional specialists directly into communities to own, deliver, and monitor our core pillars: WHISKids (youth mental health), WHISSeniors (healthy ageing), WHISatWork (workplace wellbeing), WHISGreen(environmental health), and WHISTech (digital innovation and AI).
- Community Mobilization Funding: Local corporate and grassroots contributions are clustered directly around these deployment teams to scale localized toolkits, fund school-level advocacy, and open up green, blue, and artistic spaces for public health delivery. Every project is monitored against strict Social Return on Investment (SROI) metrics, giving our corporate partners audited, tangible data that can be proudly displayed in their annual impact and sustainability statements.
Activating the “Healthy City” Blueprint & Custom Mandates
For major financial institutions and multinational corporations, this campaign unlocks a unique opportunity: the ability to fund a bespoke, localized health wrap. A macro-contribution can completely fund an entire multi-pillar operational team for an urban area—embedding specialists directly into a city’s schools, local businesses, elderly care networks, and environmental initiatives simultaneously to wrap around the whole ecosystem.
Furthermore, for institutions with specific geographic priorities or dedicated impact mandates, we work with your leadership team to co-design, resource, and execute custom public health, ecological, or tech-driven healthcare projects to dismantle the specific social inequalities your corporate mandate wishes to target.
A Decade of Infrastructure, Ready to Scale
When I served as the Chief Officer of the National Haemophilia Council in Ireland, and later when I was appointed to Pope Francis’s Vatican COVID-19 Commission, the lesson was always the same: lasting change happens when high-level policy is backed by practical, community-level delivery mechanisms.
Through WHIS and the Global Social Prescribing Alliance, we have spent ten years building that delivery mechanism, engaging over 20 million people worldwide. The infrastructure is built. The frameworks are validated. The global expert network is in place. Now, we need the financial architecture to match.
We are currently speaking to forward-thinking corporations, banks, and family offices to anchor the launch of this campaign. If your organization is ready to move past passive CSR and start actively designing a healthier, more equitable world, let’s talk.
Join the movement. Let’s co-create the future of health.
Contact: whis.world | gareth@whis.world