About Robert F. Smith & Fund II Foundation

As a major philanthropic organization, Fund II Foundation has a strong focus on defending human rights. And as Robert F. Smith, Founding Director and President of the Fund II Foundation noted, human rights are often linked to health and wellness, especially in the Black community. Working to protect healthcare access and equity as a human right, Fund II Foundation made a $27 million grant to Susan G. Komen for the ambitious African American Health Equity Initiative in 2016.

Smith spoke at the launch event for the Initiative, and said, “The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King said that the biggest injustice one can find is really in healthcare. The Fund II Foundation is focused on — among a number of pillars – helping to decrease that disparity and level the playing field in health care and treatment for African-American women.”

The Fund II Foundation and Susan G. Komen

With the help of the Fund II Foundation, Komen has set the ambitious but very necessary goal of reducing Black breast cancer disparities by 25%, starting in 10 metropolitan areas in the U.S. with the highest disparities. This Initiative’s urgency and noble aspirations speak to the extreme danger posed by cancer within the Black community. Data shows that Black women in the U.S. are about 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than white women. Nearly half of Black women diagnosed with breast cancer die within 5 years vs. less than one in three white women. Black women are also often diagnosed later, and with more aggressive forms of breast cancer, and experience a negative financial impact from their diagnosis and these gaps remain large after controlling for social and economic variables. Through education and increasing access to better healthcare, the Initiative hopes to help Black women across the country who otherwise would not receive equitable cancer care.

The work of the Health Equity Initiative will first focus on African-American communities in:

• Memphis, TN
• St. Louis, MO
• Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• Virginia Beach, VA
• Atlanta, GA
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Washington, DC and
• Philadelphia, PA

It is the hope of the Fund II Foundation that their partnership with Susan G. Komen in these communities will help educate and empower the Black community, improve early detection, and diagnosis, and successfully treat breast cancer. Through a shared goal to eliminate systemic barriers to high quality healthcare, the Fund II Foundation and the African American Health Equity Initiative hope to dramatically decrease late stage diagnosis and deaths, and achieve breast health equity in the U.S.

About Robert F. Smith