The Non-Profit Sector & Public Health Nutrition

Major Roles

• Fund

• Educate

• Serve

• Convene

• Advocate

Funders: W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Food and Society

• Vision: food system provides all segments of society, especially those most vulnerable, a safe and nutritious food supply, grown in a manner that protects health and the environment, and adds economic and social value to rural and urban communities.

• Example of Project: Tohono O'odham Community Action - improve nutritional quality of available foods, provide economic opportunities, revitalize traditional cultural practices, and reduce diabetes rates

• Food & Society Fellows

• Creating vibrant communities that provide equitable access to affordable, healthy, locally grown food and safe and inviting places for physical activity and play.

• Working in 9 communities

Funders: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

• Childhood Obesity: Reversing the epidemic by 2015:– Evidence. Investments in building the evidence base

will help ensure that the most promising efforts are replicated throughout the nation.

– Action. Our action strategy for communities and schools focuses on engaging partners at the local level, building coalitions, and promoting the most promising approaches. 

– Advocacy. As we learn from our evidence and action strategies, we share results by educating leaders and investing in advocacy, building a broad national constituency for childhood obesity prevention.

RWJF National Programs for Childhood Obesity

Active Living Research Active Living Resource Center Active Living by DesignActive for Life: Increasing

Physical Activity Levels in Adults Age 50 and Older®

Communities Creating Healthy Environments: Improving Access to Healthy Foods and Safe Places to Play in Communities of Color

Healthy Eating Research: Building Evidence to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Healthy Eating by DesignHealthy Kids, Healthy

Communities: Supporting Community Action to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Leadership for Healthy Communities: Advancing Policies to Support Healthy Eating and Active Living

Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children

Funders: Kresge Foundation

• The quality of an individual’s health is determined, in large part, by where he or she lives. Healthy communities foster the physical and emotional well being of their residents. – The natural environment – The built environment – The social environment

Funders: Seattle Foundation

We are one of the nation’s largest community foundations, addressing a broad spectrum of issues locally, regionally and internationally. We apply our deep knowledge of the community to inform strategies for its health through effective philanthropy. Together with more than 1,200 contributing individuals and families, we are making our world a better place to live.

Promising Strategies in Wellness and Preventative Care: Work

That Donors can Fund • Encourage programs that promote fitness as a group

activity, to be done with family and friends. • Expand health and fitness programs aimed at young

people, especially those that teach kids healthy habits in the first five years of life. 

•  Develop wellness approaches that address social connections, mental health and stress reduction, along with fitness and nutrition.

• Improve prenatal care and early parenting support for teenage, African American and Native American mothers, who suffer disproportionately high rates of infant mortality.

• Use community leaders or networks to teach HIV/AIDS prevention and other risk-reducing behavior.

• Engage older adults and the disabled in exercise, classes and social get-togethers.

What's Working in Wellness & Preventative

Care: Local programs in Action

• The YMCA of Greater Seattle provides daily fitness classes, outdoor activities, summer camps, and other programs to more than 125,000 local residents a year, serving people of all ages, races, faiths and incomes.

• The Barbershop Project, sponsored by Brother to Brother, trains barbers serving the African American community to teach others how to protect themselves and their loved ones from HIV. The barbers also link customers to free HIV training, testing and counseling.

• Delta Society improves human health through service and therapy animals. Through its Pet Partners Program, they train and screen volunteers and their pets to take part in visiting animal programs in hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, schools and other facilities.

Educate: Produce for Better Health Foundation

• Non-profit 501(c)(3) consumer education foundation

• Purpose: to motivate people to eat more fruits and vegetables to improve public health

• Activities– nutrition education and marketing programs, including

the new Fruits & Veggies—More Matters – nutrition policy efforts– industry and government collaboration

Serve

• Nutrition Assistance Programs– Feeding America– Meals on Wheels Association of America– Bread for the World– Share our Strength– World Hunger Year– Etc.

Convene

Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence

Partnership

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Kaiser Permanente

The California Endowment

Nemours Health and Prevention Services

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Kresge Foundation

PolicyLink: Program Director

Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership

• A collaboration of funders who have come together with the shared goal of changing policies and environments to better achieve the vision of healthy people living in healthy places

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Vision

• Safe neighborhoods, communities and buildings support physical activity as part of everyday life.

• Fresh, local, and healthy food is available and affordable in all communities and neighborhoods.

• Healthy foods and beverages are promoted in grocery and other food stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues.

• Schools offer and promote only healthy food and beverages to students.

• Schools promote healthy physical activities and incorporate them throughout the day, including before and after school.

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Vision (cont’)• Workplaces and employers offer and promote access

to healthy foods and beverages and opportunities for physical activity.

• Health care organizations and providers promote healthy eating and active living in their own institutional policies and in their clinical practices.

• Organizations, institutions, and individuals that influence the information and entertainment environments share responsibility for and act responsibly to promote healthy eating and active living.

• Childcare organizations, including preschool, after-school and early childhood settings, offer and promote only healthy foods and beverages to children and provide sufficient opportunities for, and promote, physical activity.

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Values

• Promote equity and social justice

• Respect, recognize, and build upon the assets and capacity of communities

• Value learning from new evidence

• Have the wisdom to change course as dictated by experience

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Four core strategies that leverage environmental change

1. Build support for environmental and policy changes that promote healthy eating and active living.

2. Promote and support coordination and connections within the healthy eating and active living field

3. Optimize and increase investments in order to enhance the intensity, reach, and the number of community-based initiatives focused on environmental and policy change to enhance healthy eating and active living.

4. Foster market-based change so that healthy food and opportunities for daily activity are available to all, affordable, safe, convenient and attractively presented and marketed.

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Within and Across Strategies

• Advance equity• Promote cross sector policy, advocacy,

networking, and mobilization• Foster leadership• Move the evidence base forward• Employ the best in strategic communication• Leverage resources– within, across, and

beyond

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Infrastructure

• MOUs between partners• Program Director Search• Prevention Institute and Civic Results

Research• PolicyLink as Program Director• Tides as Financial Manager• Committees and Working Groups

Advocate

Three Ways to Involve Foundations in Public Policy

• Three Phases in Policy Development – investigative phase – action for change phase – implementation phase

http://www.fieldstonealliance.org/client/tools_you_can_use/01-31-07_power_in_policy_involve_fndtns.cfm

Investigative Phase• Identifying public problems or opportunities • Determining who is affected and involved in the

issue • Gathering information about what options and

solutions exist • Bringing key players together for deliberation

and discussion

• Example: Annie E Casey Foundation support for the Health of Washington’s Children report on childhood obesity: http://hspc.org/publications/pdf/hspc_AR_07_web.pdf

The action for change phase

• Planning for public policy and civic action • Building the capacity of groups that will engage

in advocacy • Organizing and mobilizing activities to influence

government decision makers or other stakeholders to agree to a policy change or new way of doing civic business

• Example: PolicyLink’s – Your Guide to the E-Advocacy Revolution http://www.policylink.org/Projects/eAdvocacy/default.html

Implementation Phase• Working with agencies and other groups to

put the agreed upon change into place • Evaluating results

• Example: Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation funded an assessment of the nutrition environment of licensed child care in Los Angeles County -

http://www.first5la.org/research/an-assessment-of-nutrition-and-the-nutrition-environment-in-licensed-child-care-in-los-ange