March 2019 Grant Announcement: Forward Together
We are proud to announce that on March 18, 2019, Blue Shield of California Foundation’s Board of Trustees approved a set of forward-looking grants that will create new possibilities for Californians for years to come.
We are investing $1 million in the BUILD Health Challenge, an innovative funding collaborative, which, over the next 40 months, will use this support to help community partnerships reduce the health disparities caused by systemic and social inequities. These partnerships will explore early opportunities to improve community health by addressing the social determinants of health, like education, safety, housing, and employment, which contribute to 80 percent of a person’s health. We are supporting two collaborative projects in California that will extend over two years, and we strongly encourage you to learn more about the BUILD Health Challenge and apply for funding. The deadline is April 5, 2019.
We are supporting a more expansive and just future for Californians, one that promotes positive gender norms as a means of ending gender-based violence. To advance this vision, we, as a founding funding partner, are providing $2.5 million in support to the newly-formed California Gender Justice Funder Collaborative, led by the Women’s Foundation of California. This collaborative will invest in a powerful culture change strategy—using clear narratives within the contexts of race, power, identity and class—to help all Californians achieve our full potential and lead our healthiest lives.
Research on the life course of domestic violence has found that California’s court-mandated batterer intervention programs, which have remained largely unchanged since the mid-1990s, result in recidivism rates that range from 40 to 80 percent. We are supporting a pilot project by the California State Association of Counties to test alternative programs using evidence-based practices in six counties. These programs will help break the cycle of violence and reduce the state’s domestic violence rate.
Additional funding will support health journalism, the promotion of ideas and dialogue to foster healthy communities, and collaborative ventures to improve the health and wellness of communities, along with the economic mobility of people and the strength of neighborhoods.
Together, these grants help us achieve our bold goal to make California the healthiest state in the nation with the lowest rate domestic violence.
Grantees
Women's Foundation of California
This project will launch the first-ever funding collaborative designed to advance gender justice in California. This collaborative is a catalytic step toward upstream prevention to break the cycle of violence for future generations by influencing the environment to create behavior and systems changes to reduce gender-based violence. It also engages new funders in gender-based violence that historically have not been engaged on the issue. This culture change approach is already informing work across the Foundation and will weave lessons and story narratives to strengthen efforts about addressing issues of identity, diversity, and inclusion, Courage Museum, immigration response, and movement building efforts. This change strategy introduces a new approach for driving prevention by marrying policy change with new narratives and story platforms to influence culture as a critical lever for positive gender norms change.California Community Foundation
Bold Vision 2028 is a 10-year, multi-funder initiative that will significantly expand economic vitality and shared prosperity for Los Angeles County residents, with a focus on collaborating across sectors to improve the systems that influence the life course for vulnerable youth of color. Los Angeles County is poised to make significant, measurable progress over the next decade due to strong civic leadership and political will, high levels of collaboration and activity across sectors and with different players, new dedicated funding sources to address challenging issues like homelessness, and strong organizations driving collaborative models such as the Center for Strategic Public Private Partnerships.de Beaumont Foundation
The BUILD Health Challenge consists of multi-sector collaborations focused on upstream health approaches that strengthen the pipeline of collaborations prepared to change the systems that drive poor health and domestic violence in California. With this project, BUILD will support a new cohort of innovative collaboratives that will catalyze sustainable improvements in community health. These collaboratives will include a community-based organization, health system, and public health department working together to address upstream challenges.George Washington University
This project supports the Funders Forum on Accountable Health to work to advance accountable communities for health models by promoting dialogue and catalyzing change among public and private funders of accountable communities for health efforts across the country.Project HOPE - The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.
This grant supports research and analyses that produces publications that educate policymakers, government officials, researchers, and leaders in health in California and across the nation on efforts to improve health and end violence.Commonwealth Club
This grant supports the development of public programs that address issues that affect the health and well-being of California communities.California State Association of Counties
This grant will support a six-county pilot project to test innovative strategies for preventing recidivism in cases of domestic violence.Get our newsletter
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