It’s been more than a year since we announced 我们的精细化战略. 自, we’ve diligently dedicated time and resources to really “live into” our strategy across all aspects of our work. 我们的基石 指导我们的方法, outline who we serve and how we stay informed by community, and keep equity at the heart of our mission to improve the health of Coloradans.
Much of our focus this year has been to bring our cornerstones to life in our day-to-day work — both at our headquarters in Denver and on the ground across the state.
举个例子 科罗拉多州卫生专题讨论会 in July, where we discussed the intersection of housing, health and inequity. We carefully crafted this year’s conference with the commitment to our cornerstones front and center. We also leveraged relationships with experts in the housing space, as well as those with lived experience, 告知主题, sessions and speakers that would resonate with attendees. Doing so helped us shape an event experience intent on addressing housing inequities that impact 人 we exist to serve.
我们也 working deeply within communities — playing an active listening role so we can better understand what it means to have health in reach within the context of a specific region, 社区或邻里. Our program staff are on the ground across Colorado, taking it all in — the places, 人, 文化, histories and what makes each community unique. This new way of engaging helps us get clear on the ways in which we can best support communities on their path to advancing health and health equity.
在内部, we recently integrated our cornerstones into our grant application review and decision-making process. We now look for alignment with all three of our cornerstones when reviewing every grant application. 我们这样做, 在某种程度上, through the addition of questions about health equity and community engagement in our due diligence process, and our program officers explicitly describe how a grant proposal aligns with our cornerstones in their written recommendations.
这个月, we take another critical step in making our cornerstones visible and tangible by introducing new questions into our grant application. We now ask applicants to share how they:
- Serve populations living on low income and who have historically experienced less power and privilege
- Keep informed in their work by the communities they serve
- Seek to address health equity through their programs and/or projects
In an effort to avoid adding length and complexity to our grant application, 我们组织重写, changed or deleted some questions. We hope you even find some questions are now easier to understand. When determining the value of a question, 我们问自己, “Is this information absolutely necessary to decide whether we make a site visit or ask for further information?” If we couldn’t answer “yes” to that question, we didn’t include it in the application.
Through the process of refining our grant application, we leaned on current and former grantees for their insights and past experiences. We are grateful for their input, which was critical in helping us achieve greater clarity about and connection with our cornerstones. 在不久的将来, we will evaluate whether and to what degree these revisions help us identify organizations, programs and/or projects aligned with our mission and cornerstones. We’ll also consider additional changes to further our understanding of the work and priorities of organizations seeking funding.
While we’ve made a lot of progress on this front, there’s certainly much more to do. Over the next year, we will identify more ways to put our cornerstones into practice. Part of this work includes getting clear about what we look for in our partners with regard to their dedication to equity and community engagement.
We are committed to ensuring those we engage with live into our cornerstones alongside us. We will continuously seek input and guidance from grantees and other partners about how we do that, because we know health and health equity cannot become a reality for all Coloradans without your voice and the tireless work you do every day.
Learn more about applying for a grant 然后访问我们的 申请人信息网络研讨会 for more information before you submit a grant application.