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Our Initiatives We advance community-based solutions through cross-sector partnerships in historically marginalized, disinvested low-income communities that are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. We partner with community development, health, local government, and advocacy organizations to build community power, implement health and racial equity frameworks and catalyze neighborhood revitalization efforts.

Healthy Neighborhood Investments

Healthy Neighborhood Investments, a Build Healthy Places Network initiative funded by Blue Shield of California Foundation, promotes community development and healthcare partnerships as the go-to sustainable model in California for addressing the social determinants of health (SDOH) and advancing health and racial equity in historically marginalized communities.

Healthy Neighborhood Investments is helping us better understand barriers to collaboration, tailor our technical assistance based on what we learn, and work to embed capacity within local organizations to address those barriers. The program includes projects in three California communities where both sectors are investing in SDOH such as service-enriched affordable housing, grocery stores in food deserts, and childcare facilities. We are also developing a policy scan in partnership with Shift Health Accelerator of federal, state and local policies that influence cross-sector partnerships between community development and healthcare.

Partners

Coachella Valley: Coachella Valley Housing Coalition and Local Initiatives Support Corporation

Fresno: Fresno Community and Economic Development Partnership

Stockton: Reinvent South Stockton Coalition and Low Income Investment Fund

Technical Assistance: Center to Advance Community Health & Equity

Policy Scan Support: Shift Health Accelerator

Healthy Neighborhood Investments: What We’ve Learned to Date (link)

Community Innovations for Racial Equity

In 2022, with funding from The Kresge Foundation and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Build Healthy Places Network launched Community Innovations for Racial Equity to make racial equity an explicit goal of community development efforts and engage healthcare as a powerful and well-resourced partner to achieve shared racial equity goals.

Our Community Innovations for Racial Equity Initiative focuses on building local BIPOC-led community development capacity, supporting community power, exploring innovative community ownership models, and addressing the barriers and gaps within community development and health partnerships to effectively propel racial equity. 

The goals of the Community Innovations for Racial Equity are: 

  1. Facilitate new connections and deepen existing connections between BIPOC-led Community Development Corporations (CDCs) and other peer organizations and provide increased access to resources, tools, and the larger national dialogue. 
  2. Embed capacity within these organizations to undertake community ownership models and health strategies that engage healthcare organizations (hospitals, healthcare systems, and health payors), Community Development Financial Intuitions, and other mission-driven investors.  
  3. Champion race equity partnerships, policies, approaches, and investments that magnify impacts and outcomes.
  4. Lift up for a national audience insights, tools, resources and best practices for community-led and community-owned approaches for others doing work in this area.

Community Innovations for Racial Equity Awardee Cohort

We are thrilled to introduce the Community Innovations for Racial Equity peer-learning cohort. Each BIPOC-led C DCs in this cohort receives a $40,000 in funds plus in-kind technical assistance from the Network valued at $60,000 to support healthcare collaboration and advance racial equity. As part of this opportunity, our BIPOC-led CDC partners have the option of working with a BIPOC-consultant that brings expertise and experience in cross-sector partnerships and racial justice.

SEE FULL LIST OF CONSULTANTS

List of Awardees:

Miami Workers Center

Miami, FL

Sankofa Community Development Corporation

New Orleans, LA

Cihuapactli Collective

Phoenix, AZ

Spanish Lake CDC

St. Louis, MO

Co-op Dayton

Dayton, OH

Communities First, Inc.

Flint, MI

MQVN Community Development Consortium

New Orleans, LA

Virginia Community Voice

Richmond, VA

African Economic Development Solutions

St. Paul, MN

Power Center Community Development Corporation

Memphis, TN

Community Innovations for Racial Equity Advisory Committee

Asfiya Mariam

Program Associate, Association for Community Affiliated Plans

Avery Ebron

Head of Community Product & Operations, The Guild

Diane Moss

Managing Director, Project New Village

Eliisa Frazier

Director of Racial Equity & Impact Lending, Low Income Investment Fund

Jonathan Green

Executive Director, Steps Coalition

Leon Caldwell

Senior Director Health Equity Strategy and Innovations, American Hospital Association

Lenwood V Long, Sr.

President/CEO, African Alliance of CDFI CEO's

Lisa Attygalle

Director of Community Engagement, Tamarack Institute

Maryan Abdinur

Community Ownership Project Coordinator, Hope Community, Inc.

Marissa McKeever

Director of Government and Community Affairs, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Our Services We provide technical assistance to health and community development organizations to build healthy communities together.

Our Services

Landscape / Market Analysis

Mapping, connecting to, and building on existing cross-sector initiatives that address systemic racism in historically disinvested communities and advance health equity

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Case-making

Customized case-making to provide organizations with the messaging, language, and knowledge needed to engage with other sectors to advance racial and health equity

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Brokering Connections

Fostering and managing meaningful connections between community development, healthcare and public health organizations that are mission-aligned

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Training

Convening and providing training to community development and health leaders for project development and co-investment to improve health and racial equity

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BHPN market scans for LIIF helped us target our work to engage with healthcare in key markets. Now we can forge partnerships to collaborate on investments in the social determinants of health.

—Kirsten Shaw, Director of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regions at Low Income Investment Fund

With BHPN’s guidance and extended capacity we are creating shared goals with healthcare systems and advancing projects that address racial equity and impact health and wellbeing in Coachella Valley, CA.

—Julia Ryan, Vice President of Health Initiatives at Local Initiatives Support Corporation

Build Healthy Places Network has been instrumental in advancing Intermountain’s investment strategies to address SDOH, embed a racial and healthy equity lens, and bring more CFDI investment to Utah.

—Nicholas Fritz, Impact Investing Director at Intermountain Healthcare

Landscape/Market Analysis

Analysis tailored to identify potential health and/or community partners, initiatives, priorities, pain points, and investment history.

We produce race-conscious analyses for health systems, CDFIs, local CDCs, and health foundations, which they then use to successfully clarify and prioritize partnership opportunities that advance health and racial equity. Partnerships will be equipped to identify locations for investment, translate language barriers to more effectively engage across sectors, and focus investment strategies based on historical disinvestment, aligned goals, existing efforts and community priorities.

Case-Making

We produce pitch decks and custom “leave behind” resources that speak to a specific potential partner’s investment priorities and history, helping to secure new funding for local projects as well as advocacy support for comprehensive community development.

Connections

We help foster and manage meaningful connections between community development and healthcare organizations that are mission-aligned.

Brokering Connections

We curate conversations to foster collaboration on a specific fund or project or in a specific location with the goal of mapping out an action plan for project development and investment.

Relationship Management

We coordinate strategic introductions (through warm hand-offs, virtual meetings, or in-person conversations), plan and participate in meetings and calls, review/revise materials and talking points to facilitate conversation, and serve as a moderator and translator to ensure ongoing successful communication. Playing this key role on behalf of CDFIs, CDCs, and health systems has brought new investments to the table and fostered new advocacy partnerships that address social determinants of health.

Training

We train community development teams on effective health engagement strategies and racial equity approaches (drawing from the Healthcare Playbook for Community Developers) and healthcare teams on the utility and best use of community development, its resources, expertise and investments including risk/return profiles.

Our trainings have allowed Community Development Financial Institutions to outsource baseline knowledge-building for interested healthcare investors and informed healthcare investors’ decisions to invest in community development funds or projects.