Building a Network of Community Collaboratives to Create Healthy Communities and Advance Policy Priorities in California: Learning from a Process Evaluation of the California Convergence, 2007-2009

This presentation describes how a process evaluation conducted by ICF Macro informed the coordination of the California Convergence, a funder consortium created in 2007 to strengthen a movement to connect State and local leaders; build knowledge, networks, and capacity across California; and to advance policy priorities focused on improving food and physical activity environments locally and across the state. The funders joining together to create the California Convergence, coordinated by the Partnership for the Public's Health, are The California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the California Department of Public Health, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The evaluation, which focused on the Convergence's initial two years, produced findings which were used to inform decisions about maintaining successful Convergence strategies and improving areas that needed strengthening. As a result of these findings, the Convergence has made a continued investment in face-to-face meetings and staff support, among other activities. Improvements include strengthening systems for identifying policy priorities (currently healthy food retail, community access to schoolyards and gymnasiums for safe places to play; climate change, safety/violence prevention, and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption), and formalizing criteria for Convergence participation. Not heavily used during the initial two years, NING, the Convergence's social networking site, has been transformed into a dynamic conduit for learning, networking, and capacity building. Implications for other regions and States considering ways to coordinate their own efforts to improve food and physical activity environments through systemic and policy change also will be discussed.