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Grantmakers
Grantmakers have a role in advancing community health. As a respected and neutral party, you can convene partners from multiple sectors to work collaboratively to assess the health of the community, focus on key health issues, and use evidence-informed practices to address those issues. Your grantmaking can incentivize this type of focused and collaborative approach to improving the health of your community.
Oftentimes, communities look for funding opportunities to support new initiatives. As grantmakers, there are many roles you can play aside from providing financial assistance to encourage communities to make strong investments in health; you are in a position to support and influence the work of communities. Grantmakers can:
- Get the word out. Reach out to people you know and see every day about the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, e.g., at a local Chamber of Commerce breakfast or at an urban planning meeting. Post information about the report on a listserv, website, or e-newsletter.
- Communicate your message. Write an op-ed –- or ask a local policymaker to co-author one –- and talk to local media about the Rankings & Roadmaps and what needs to be done to improve the health of your community.
- Convene stakeholders, including community members from multiple sectors, to discuss the County Health Rankings. Create or participate in a task force to assess the root causes behind poor health in your county and create an actionable plan to tackle them that involves other important leaders in the community. Use the County Health Roadmaps to support these efforts.
- Share your resources. Offer your time, staff, and/or funding with community partners. These are resources that can go toward community plans and programs aimed at tackling factors that affect health.
- Collect data to provide access to reliable, consistent local data to track change over time and measure results of efforts.
- Educate the community about evidence based and promising practices to improve health and encourage their adoption in your community.
- Support policies, programs and practices to address issues identified in action plans created by your community members.
- Disseminate experience and learning to other grantmakers, policymakers, and community leaders.
Visit the Roadmaps to Health Action Center to find valuable guides and tools to support your community’s work to improve health. Here are additional tools and resources grantmakers may find useful:
Building Partnerships
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Grantcraft has many guides on working with government, building community groups and other great resources available to download free of charge.
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Community Health Partnerships: Tools and Information for Development and Support (Word document from US Healthiest) discusses strategies for building partnerships between public health, business, and other community leaders.
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Community Quality Collaboratives (from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) includes community-based organizations of multiple stakeholders, including health care providers, purchasers (employers, employer coalitions, Medicaid and others), health plans, and consumer advocacy organizations, that are working together to transform healthcare at the local level.
Assessment, Evidence, and Evaluation
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Community Assessment Tools (from Rotary International) provides detailed descriptions, planning tips and samples for several types of assessment.
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Assessing Community Needs and Resources (from the Community Tool Box) includes 21 sections mostly dedicated to different methods for collecting information (e.g., Conducting Focus Groups, Conducting Surveys, and Qualitative Methods to Assess Community Issues).
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Examples of Policies and Programs that Work (from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps) provides examples of evidence-informed policies and programs in each of the health factor areas.
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The California Endowment Evaluation Toolkit provides tools for conducting program evaluations.
Grantmaking Organizations
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Funders' Network exists inspire, strengthen and expand funding and philanthropic leadership that yield environmentally sustainable, socially equitable, and economically prosperous regions and communities.
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Grantmakers in Health is a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to helping foundations and corporate giving programs improve the health of all people.
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National Rural Funders Collaborative are working together to create and provide a “gathering space” for small and middle-sized funders—community foundations, family foundations and others—working in and supporting rural communities and regions.
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Neighborhood Funders Group is a membership association of grantmakers who support social justice and social change and work to improve the economic and social fabric of urban and rural low to moderate income communities.
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Independent Sector is the leadership forum for charities, foundations, and corporate giving programs committed to advancing the common good in America and around the world. Independent Sector's nonpartisan coalition of approximately 550 organizations leads, strengthens, and mobilizes the charitable community in order to fulfill their vision of a just and inclusive society and a healthy democracy of active citizens, effective institutions, and vibrant communities.
