Align systems with community priorities

Communities understand their needs and strengths best. Ensuring those communities have more say in which issues get addressed is the best way to build lasting, more equitable solutions to health disparities and domestic violence. 

Currently, many public systems designed to help our society’s most vulnerable communities fail to meet their needs. To bridge this gap, these public systems need to be equipped to prioritize racial equity and work closely with the communities they serve. 

We advocate for solutions such as community-led processes, strategic policy shift, narrative change, and collaborative efforts that bring multiple sectors together to prioritize health and well-being. By fostering stronger and more responsive relationships between communities and systems, we support greater resilience in both.

Meaningful change happens when public systems and communities are actively engaged in dialogue about the best ways to prevent health inequities and domestic violence.

Empowering communities to achieve health equity

Our work to align systems with community priorities involves working with grantee partners across the state both at the community level and systems level to better serve communities in achieving health equity.

“The chorus of voices calling out racial and economic inequality is growing louder and public systems are responding. Positive change has begun. And, if we support communities as they assert their priorities and needs, more will come."

—Richard Vezina, Senior Program Officer

Creating impact through systems change

View of a whiteboard, highlighting text that reads "Community Involved, NOT community informed"

Meaningful change is possible when community priorities are supported and enabled by systems. To achieve that, we support:

  • Community-led efforts to create more responsive, inclusive, and equitable health systems and domestic violence systems
  • Policy and practice change in systems to institutionalize racial and gender equity, and fulfill the priorities of communities
  • Multisector collaborations as a powerful vehicle for systems change
  • The development of data to better understand the root causes of health inequities and domestic violence across our state
  • Policy wins and resource allocations for community-led initiatives
  • Narrative projects that expand community power

    Grantees

    Grantee Year Grant Amount Region
    Community Partners 2023 $500,000 San Francisco Bay Area
    Regents of the University of California at San Diego 2023 $240,000 South
    California Common Cause 2023 $125,000 Statewide
    Public Health Institute 2023 $275,000 National
    Prevention Institute 2023 $160,000 Statewide
    SBCS Corporation 2023 $150,000 South
    Alliance for Community Transformations 2023 $150,000 Central
    WEAVE Inc 2023 $150,000 Sacramento Valley
    County of Contra Costa California 2023 $150,000 San Francisco Bay Area
    Public Health Institute 2023 $150,000 North
    City and County of San Francisco 2023 $150,000 San Francisco Bay Area
    Vose River Charitable Fund 2022 $1,000,000 Statewide
    Advancement Project California 2022 $800,000 Statewide
    Sierra Health Foundation Center for Health Program Management 2022 $750,000 Central
    Liberty Hill Foundation 2022 $500,000 Los Angeles
    Sierra Health Foundation Center for Health Program Management 2022 $400,000 Statewide
    Asian Resources Inc 2022 $300,000 Statewide
    CivicPulse 2022 $300,000 Statewide
    Tides Center 2022 $200,000 Statewide
    Human Impact Partners 2022 $500,000 Statewide

    Related publications and insights

    The faces behind the work

    Portrait of Richard Vezina

    Senior Program Officer

    Portrait of Richard Thomason

    Director of Policy

    Portrait of Margaret Grier

    Program Manager

    Portrait of RocQuel Johnson

    Communications Officer

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