Building capacity to promote community health

Recognizing that traditional models of care alone can not create and sustain health communities, the 12 year Community Clinics Initiative of The California Endowment and Tides launched a four-year $10 million effort to enhance the capacity of California community clinics to become “Centers for Community Health.” The goal of this program is to build on clinics' strengths and propel them to move outside their four walls and form networks with multi-sector partners to more effectively promote community health. The need for these networked approaches to health has been accentuated by the current economic crisis, health care reform and the changing landscape of health care delivery. In this session, we will describe the grantmaking model, including the variety of types of grantmaker supports as well as the different strategies (e.g., use of data, media advocacy, engagement of promotores) that networks are undertaking to address an array of community health issues. Based on the results of a mixed-methods evaluation, we will present the key processes and impacts from the initial two years of the program, which centered around enhancing capacity to promote community health. The program enhanced the organizational capacity of clinics and their partners, as well as the collective capacity of the networks and communities. We will share lessons learned about the keys ways to support capacity building that are applicable to those who design, implement and support community health efforts.