Dear Global Health Corps (GHC) friends and supporters, 

GHC was founded in 2009 on the belief that leadership is the most powerful lever for change. That belief still guides our work, and our mission remains mobilizing the next generation of health equity leaders. Iteration, though, is in our DNA. At every step in our 15 year journey, we’ve adapted and innovated — one of the core leadership practices we teach our fellows — to meet the world’s needs. That’s why we’ve made the strategic decision to evolve our fellowship model in Africa to a more scalable version that builds on our traditional model’s legacy: a diverse network of 1200+ effective, collaborative, and influential leaders driving a ripple effect of change to realize health equity.  

Our team has spent significant time clarifying GHC’s unique value proposition in a world that has undergone seismic changes in recent years. A global pandemic, racial justice reckoning, and accelerating climate change have intersected with both incredible breakthroughs and heartbreaking setbacks in health. We know we urgently need more health leaders who are empathetic and committed to equity; skilled at building trust and collaborating; and bold and innovative. Each year, thousands of passionate young people apply to join GHC and inquire about our expansion. We know they are eager to grow their leadership and management skills to serve others, but have limited access to these opportunities. Great leaders aren’t born — they’re nurtured early and often.

Against this backdrop, we’re ready to launch our Leadership Accelerator in Sub-Saharan Africa this year. Because this model is more flexible, cost-effective, and scalable than our traditional fellowship, it allows us to bring our award-winning curriculum, deep partnerships, and tight-knit global network to more emerging leaders across Africa. The program will build on the incredible foundation we’ve already laid in our 15 years of developing leaders: 

• 1,200+ young people trained and placed within health organizations in Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, the USA, and Zambia, with 83% now in mid- to-senior-level leadership roles. 
• 81% of GHC alumni continue to collaborate professionally, demonstrating the power of a tight-knit network of leaders who are creating a ripple effect of collective impact. 
• Majority female, they work across 450+ health and social impact organizations. They head up social enterprises and serve as the backbone of organizations from Ministries of Health to international NGOs and grassroots organizations. 

Through the Leadership Accelerator, we’ll continue to recruit and train diverse cohorts of early to mid-career professionals, with a focus on supporting those already working in global health. Across nine months, fellows will engage in hybrid skill building sessions, speaker series, in-person leadership retreats, executive coaching, mentorship, and integration into GHC’s alumni network for life. GHC programming will strengthen their competencies in core areas: 

1. 1. Effective Management: People, Projects, & Budgets
   2. Collaborative Problem Solving & Decision Making
   3. Influential Communication & Change Navigation
   4. Leading with a Globally Minded, Locally Rooted Perspective 

In addition to the Leadership Accelerator, we’ll also keep advancing our vision through our U.S. fellowship, our alumni program, and custom leadership and management trainings. And of course, we’ll continue to adapt and innovate in pursuit of our unwavering mission of mobilizing emerging leaders for health equity. 

Thank you to all of you who are on this challenging, rewarding journey with us. I hope you are energized as I am by the possibilities that lie ahead. 

With gratitude,
Heather Anderson
CEO, Global Health Corps