Consumer Health Foundation
Dedicated to making a difference in the health of the community
Our Work
Milestones in CHF’s Health & Racial Equity Work
Following is a list of activities the Foundation has engaged in to advance racial and health equity (the story of our journey can be also found in our 2009 Annual Report, Health Justice: A Conversation).
2012:
- CHF holds its 2012 Annual Meeting, Connecting Communities: Advancing Regional Solutions For Health Equity, featuring Angela Glover Blackwell from PolicyLink.
- CHF writes article, Charting a Path Toward Health Equity, for Grantmakers in Health’s 2012 annual meeting Health and Equity for All, discussing the evolution of the Foundation’s work to address health equity in the DC metro region.
- In her acceptance speech for the 2012 Terrance Keenan Leadership Award, CHF President/CEO Margaret O’Bryon highlights the critical role health philanthropy must play in advancing equity.
- CHF hosts a training for its advocacy grantees and their key partners on Communicating Health and Racial Equity facilitated by Berkeley Media Studies Group.
- CHF supports 1-1 technical assistance to grantees to advance diversity, equity and inclusion within their organizations in partnership with OpenSource Leadership Strategies, Inc.
- CHF releases 2011 annual report, Building Equity: Community Empowerment as a Path to Better Health, featuring innovative, grassroots solutions to improving health and wealth in communities.
2009 - 2011:
- CHF revises its Strategic Plan and Logic Model with a focus on Health Justice.
- CHF releases its new Request for Proposals on Advocacy for Health Care Access and Health Justice. RFP requests applicants to submit racial diversity data for their boards, management staff and staff.
- CHF hosts its Ruttenberg Youth Health Justice Retreat designed to provide teen leaders from CHF’s youth-serving partners a practical understanding of the Social Determinants of Health Equity framework to incorporate the concepts into their youth-led health advocacy projects.
- CHF partners with Grantmakers In Health to convene the meeting, Changing The Conversation: Taking A Social Determinants Of Health Approach To Addressing HIV/AIDS Among Women Of Color. Read the background paper here.
- CHF staff attends two-day training “From Structural Racism to Racial Equity: Philanthropy as a Pathway to Social Change” facilitated by OpenSource Leadership Strategies, Inc.
- CHF releases 2009 Annual Report, Health Justice: A Conversation.
- CHF holds its 2010 Annual Meeting, Health Equity: From Awareness to Action, featuring Dr. Tony Iton, Senior Vice President for the California Endowment’s Healthy Communities, and former Director of the Alameda County Public Health Department where he developed its comprehensive Building Health and Social Equity initiative.
- CHF provides Structural Racism and Racial Equity in Health trainings to its nonprofit grantee partners facilitated by OpenSource.
2006 – 2008:
- CHF holds its 2006 Annual Meeting, Roots and Remedies: Creating Health Equality Through Social Justice, featuring Dr. Camara P. Jones, Research Director on the Social Determinants of Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the keynote speaker.
- CHF participates in the Applied Research Center’s and the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity’s Racial Justice Grantmaking Assessment pilot project which was designed to help foundation staff and leaders understand the benefits of being explicit about racial equity, and to determine the degree to which their work is advancing racial justice. The process was featured in the 2009 report, Catalytic Change: Lessons Learned from the Racial Justice Grantmaking Assessment.
- CHF staff engages in facilitated discussions on the link between social and health inequity using the documentary Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?
- CHF holds its 2007 Annual Meeting, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, previewing the first episode of the documentary followed by keynote speaker Dr. Adewale Troutman, former Director of the Louisville (KY) Metro Public Health & Wellness Department and founder of its Center for Health Equity, who was featured in the film.
- CHF Board of Trustees engage in a facilitated meeting and discussion on structural racism’s impact on racial and ethnic health inequities for communities of color as it relates to Foundation’s health disparity focus.
- CHF, continuing its health justice theme, holds its 2008 Annual Meeting featuring Sarah Jones in her one-woman play, A Right to Care.
2004 – 2005:
- CHF conducts five Community Health Speakouts across the region in which community members identify racism as a factor contributing to racial health inequities. CHF commits to convening “community-wide health equality dialogues that address racial and ethnic disparities, particularly the impact of structural racism, on the health and well-being of communities of color in the region.”
- CHF staff engages an internal learning process on structural racism and its historic and contemporary implications with viewings and facilitated discussions of the documentary Race: The Power of an Illusion.