In all its work, the Fund seeks particularly to target issues that affect vulnerable populations. It also aims to achieve a balance between information-generating and action-oriented activities, and between public- and private-sector work. Other concrete objectives that help guide its grantmaking strategy include keeping its doors open to new talent, working in partnership with other funders, being receptive to new ideas, undertaking appropriate risks, and contributing to the resolution of health care problems in its home base, New York City, while pursuing a national and international agenda.

The Fund regularly reviews its major programs and activities to assess their effectiveness and reexamine their strategies. In 2004, the Fund carried out a review of its international health policy program, a major aspect of which was an international survey of the program's target audiences, Harkness Fellows in Health Care Policy returned to their home countries, and mentors of Harkness Fellows over the last six years. The survey and program review, conducted by David Blumenthal, M.D., Director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System, provided strong endorsement of the foundation's investment in international health policy and practice exchange. It cited particularly the strong role that the program is playing in disseminating promising quality improvement innovations among industrialized countries and the contributions of Harkness Fellows to improved policies both in their home countries and in the U.S. The review recommended steps to increase the impact of the program in the United States, through further engagement of policy officials.

The Fund's continuing commitment to communicating the results of its work to influential audiences was evidenced in 2004 by a major overhaul of its Web site, cmwf.org. Through numerous new features increasing its functionality, the new site makes it easier to find reports and program information, tailors information for key audiences such as journalists and those interested in emerging tools and innovations to improve care, and more accurately reflects the breadth and depth of Fund-supported work. With nearly 41,000 unique visitors and 218,000 Web page views each month, the site is proving to be a highly efficient and productive vehicle for distributing and publicizing the some 100 publications—Fund reports, chartbooks, issue briefs, and peer-journal articles—produced by the foundation's grantees and staff each year. It is also increasingly useful for communicating through webcasts important Fund-sponsored events—as they happen—to influential audiences and providing such services as "Washington Health Policy Week in Review" to Fund audiences.