Funders as partners: Improving access to care and addressing disparities in Washington D.C

Susan G. Komen for the Cure's® promise is to save lives and end breast cancer forever by empowering people, ensuring quality care for all and energizing science to discover the cures. In Washington D.C., Susan G. Komen for the Cure® conducted a comprehensive needs assessment to understand the barriers that influence a woman's access to quality care. Findings revealed significant gaps in outreach and education efforts in the District. Outreach was determined low priority because of low organizational capacity and despite millions being invested in education efforts, little was known about the effectiveness of breast cancer health promotion and education programs. Findings also indicated that education programs were not reaching high risk populations.

The needs assessment served as the impetus for bringing together Avon, The Department of Health, The DC Cancer Consortium and Komen in the region to gather and commit to critically evaluating existing funding practices and implementing policies that would allow them to create collective processes and measurement reporting systems in order to increase capacity of grantees and reduce duplication. As a result of the changes, these groups are able to better align their funding priorities throughout the continuum of care with the needs in the community to increase impact.

This presentation will describe the major foundations making breast cancer grants in Washington D.C. and review the analysis process they followed to assess trends and funding limitations. Finally, there will be a discussion on local policy changes implemented and the expected benefits to funders, grantees and populations disproportionately affected by breast cancer in Washington D.C.