BUILD Health Challenge grantees partner with CDFIs.

For decades, the community development and health sectors have worked in the same places with the same people – often, without knowing about each other. In recent years, the sectors have begun to work more frequently together to improve opportunity in neighborhoods where residents face obstacles to health and wellbeing.  There are bright spots, but we need more – more examples of how collaboration can work and the impact it can generate.

With this in mind, the Build Healthy Places Network and The Kresge Foundation co-hosted a breakfast at the 2015 Opportunity Finance Network conference in Detroit. The object of the networking event was to bring together a group of BUILD Health Challenge grantees and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to discuss partnership opportunities.

The Build Healthy Places Network and Kresge Foundation are happy to share that three BUILD Health Challenge grantees will receive the Network’s Joining Forces Planning Grants. These six-month grants support planning activities that will result in collaboration between BUILD grantees and CDFIs.

There are bright spots, but we need more – more examples of how collaboration can work and the impact it can generate.

The Grantees

The Network, with grant funding from the Kresge Foundation’s Social Investment Practice and Health Program, will provide $20,000 planning grants to support the following:

• First Choice Community Healthcare of Albuquerque, New Mexico, will develop a financing package and business plan for its South Valley Commons expansion project. First Choice will explore financing partnerships, including New Markets Tax Credit opportunities, with CDFIs such as Capital Impact Partners, Housing Partnership Network and others.

• Harris County Public Health & Environmental Services (HCPHES), of Pasadena, Texas, will undertake a sustainability planning process resulting in a Healthy Food Financing Plan for scaling, sustaining and replicating urban farms. Partners include the CDFI PeopleFund and the local economic development corporation Pasadena Second Century.

• DevelopSpringfield of Springfield, Massachusetts will develop a project pro-forma to successfully attract a viable grocery store operator. Partners include the local CDFI Common Capital and a local community development corporation (CDC), HAP Housing.

Sectors Joining Forces

These planning grants might be small, but the implications that they have for cross-sector collaboration are mighty. Here’s why:

• BUILD grantees are coalitions involving a community-based organization, local public health department and hospital system. These grantees are already working to improve health equity in their local communities.
• CDFIs are by definition an action arm for health equity, revitalizing low-income neighborhoods to improve opportunities for all. CDFIs are part of a more than $200 billion sector that brings public and private investment into place-based initiatives.

As health care moves into a value-based system, health care systems are seeking new partners who can help them achieve their population health goals.  Community development is a logical partner in this regard, as the sector brings significant resources, expertise and community validity to upstream, population health efforts.

By joining forces, CDFIs and BUILD grantees can have even greater impact improving communities and the lives of people living in them. These planning grants give them the resources needed to explore concrete ways to partner.

As health care moves into a value-based system, health care systems are seeking new partners who can help them achieve their population health  goals.

Building the Field

We’re excited about these planning grants. They represent a growing cross-sector movement to address neighborhood factors that shape health. These are promising partnerships, but we need more. Our hope is that grantees will develop strong relationships with CDFIs and the community development sector as a whole, and that we can lift up their stories as successful pathways for cross-sector collaboration.

We congratulate the Joining Forces planning grantees and all of the BUILD grantees on their important work, and we look forward to learning from their collective efforts.

More about the BUILD Health Challenge

The BUILD Health Challenge is a multi-funder collaboration that is supporting 18 communities that are collaboratively taking Bold, Upstream, Integrated, Local, and Data-driven approaches to moving resources, attention and action to the primary determinants of population health. In order to drive sustainable change in the improvement of community health and promotion of health equity, the BUILD Health Challenge seeks to increase the number and effectiveness of hospital-community-public health collaborations. Read more here.

More about the Build Healthy Places Network

The Build Healthy Places Network catalyzes and supports collaboration across the health and community development sectors, together working to improve low-income communities and the lives of people living in them. We do this by lifting up examples of what works, curating resources that build the body of knowledge for collaboration, and connecting leaders across sectors in pursuit of our vision: communities where all people can live rewarding and healthy lives. Please share your stories with us at admin@buildhealthyplaces.org.

More about the Kresge Foundation

The Kresge Foundation is a $3.6 billion private, national foundation that works to expand opportunities in America’s cities through grant making and social investing in arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services and community development in Detroit.