09/23/2026

Bloomberg Philanthropies: Vision Initiative

On August 2-3, Bloomberg Philanthropies and Johns Hopkins University convened a group of school-based vision care organizations from around the country at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York City. The purpose of the meeting was to share information about various program models, data collection, and challenges to the work.

The OOA and iSee Ohio were invited to attend, and Steve Dorman, iSee Ohio’s COO, represented the organizations and had the opportunity to co-lead a break-out session on advocacy.

Bloomberg has been supporting organizations working on vision care around the globe for decades and recently turned their attention to the unmet vision needs of children in the United States. By partnering with Johns Hopkins, Bloomberg brought groups together to discuss programs, challenges, and opportunities.

The discussions were both wide-ranging and in-depth. Topics included:

• Evidence Supporting School-Based Delivery of Eye Care
• School-Based Vision Programs
• Building and Sustaining School-Based Vision Programs: Lessons from the Field
• Fostering Innovation and Maximizing Impact
• Setting Up Medical Documentation and Billing Systems
• Student and Family Education About Wear and Care of Glasses
• School Engagement
• Instrument-Based Screening and Other Technology Platforms
• Medicaid and Other State Funding Pathways
• State Mandates for Vision Screening and Comprehensive Eye Exams
• State Vision Task Forces
• Policy and Legislative: Considerations in Building School-Based Vision Programs
• Consent
• Building Local Partnerships
• Fundraising and Philanthropy
• Eyeglass Adherence
• Advocacy

The meeting concluded with a lengthy discussion about leveraging data to strengthen impact. Organizations were encouraged to utilize data to tell stories about their work and the students they serve to funders, policy makers, and the general public.

This was the first of potentially more conversations that may lead to improvements in the services that iSee Ohio is delivering to students across the state.

One fun thing that came out of the event was a Spotify playlist of eye-related songs that was crowdsourced by the group: Eye songs or songs about eyes