“The winds of grace are blowing—it is you that must raise your sails.”

— Rabindranath Tagore

Program of Initiatives

As an operating foundation, the Bravewell Collaborative chooses and funds its own initiatives, all of which are designed to bring about systemic change in the health care system by advancing the principles and practices of integrative medicine.

The Bravewell Collaborative is currently engaged in the following major initiatives:

Mapping the Field

This initiative identifies, confirms, organizes and documents the existing landscape of the rapidly developing field of integrative medicine.

Sustaining Leading Clinical Centers as Models for Change

In 2004, the Bravewell Collaborative formed the Bravewell Clinical Network, a group of nine leading integrative medicine centers from across the United States.  Bravewell assists the Clinical Network members in reaching sustainability and success, in training Bravewell Clinical Fellows and in developing a Practice-Based Research Network. Lessons learned, which have been published in Best Practices in Integrative Medicine: A Report from the Bravewell Clinical Network, are helping to make high quality integrative care more widely available in the United States.

Supporting Physician Leadership

The Bravewell Collaborative created both the Bravewell Leadership Award and the Bravewell Pioneers of Integrative Medicine Awards to recognize, empower and support champions of integrative medicine in their efforts to transform the culture of health care and reclaim relationship-centered healing. 

Changing the Way Physicians are Educated

The Bravewell Collaborative is a sustaining funder of the Consortium of Academic Healthcare Centers for Integrative Medicine and its major efforts in helping transform medical education and health care delivery. The Bravewell Collaborative also seeks and works with other strategic partners who impact the field of medical education.

Educating the Public

Recognizing the importance of public opinion to the growth of the field of integrative medicine, individual members of the Bravewell Collaborative and their foundations supported the PBS Special, The New Medicine.  A production of Emmy Award-winning Middlemarch Films Inc. and Twin Cities Public Television, The New Medicine was broadcast nationwide on PBS in the spring of 2006 and viewed by more than four million people.

Estabishing Strategic Partnerships

As the Bravewell Collaborative’s work has reached a degree of maturity, effectiveness and accomplishment, opportunities have arisen for developing strategic partnerships to leverage the work of making integrative medicine a national agenda.  Chosen partners share Bravewell’s mission, values, goals and standards of performance and effectiveness.

The National Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Public Health

In 2009, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) at the National Academies of Science and The Bravewell Collaborative partnered to convene a summit exploring the science and practice of integrative medicine.

Growing the Bravewell Collaborative

The Bravewell Collaborative's greatest potential is in its membership, their collective wisdom, influence and commitment. Selective and strategic growth of the Bravewell Collaboration and its partners and advisors enhance all of its work.