The Non-Profit Sector &
Public Health Nutrition
Major Roles
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Fund
Educate
Serve
Convene
Advocate
Funders: W.K. Kellogg Foundation,
Food and Society
• Vision: food system provides all segments of
society, especially those most vulnerable, a safe
and nutritious food supply, grown in a manner
that protects health and the environment, and
adds economic and social value to rural and
urban communities.
• Example of Project: Tohono O'odham
Community Action - improve nutritional quality of
available foods, provide economic opportunities,
revitalize traditional cultural practices, and
reduce diabetes rates
• Food & Society Fellows
• Creating vibrant communities that provide
equitable access to affordable, healthy,
locally grown food and safe and inviting
places for physical activity and play.
• Working in 9 communities
Funders: Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation
• Childhood Obesity: Reversing the epidemic by
2015:
– Evidence. Investments in building the evidence base
will help ensure that the most promising efforts are
replicated throughout the nation.
– Action. Our action strategy for communities and
schools focuses on engaging partners at the local
level, building coalitions, and promoting the most
promising approaches.
– Advocacy. As we learn from our evidence and action
strategies, we share results by educating leaders and
investing in advocacy, building a broad national
constituency for childhood obesity prevention.
RWJF National Programs for
Childhood Obesity
Active Living Research
Active Living Resource Center
Active Living by Design
Active for Life: Increasing
Physical Activity Levels in
Adults Age 50 and Older®
Communities Creating Healthy
Environments: Improving
Access to Healthy Foods and
Safe Places to Play in
Communities of Color
Healthy Eating Research:
Building Evidence to Prevent
Childhood Obesity
Healthy Eating by Design
Healthy Kids, Healthy
Communities: Supporting
Community Action to Prevent
Childhood Obesity
Leadership for Healthy
Communities: Advancing
Policies to Support Healthy
Eating and Active Living
Salud America! The RWJF
Research Network to Prevent
Obesity Among Latino
Children
Funders: Kresge Foundation
• The quality of an individual’s health is
determined, in large part, by where he or
she lives. Healthy communities foster the
physical and emotional well being of their
residents.
– The natural environment
– The built environment
– The social environment
Funders: Seattle Foundation
We are one of the nation’s largest
community foundations, addressing a
broad spectrum of issues locally,
regionally and internationally. We apply
our deep knowledge of the community to
inform strategies for its health through
effective philanthropy. Together with more
than 1,200 contributing individuals and
families, we are making our world a better
place to live.
Promising Strategies in Wellness
and Preventative Care: Work
That Donors can Fund
• Encourage programs that promote fitness as a group
activity, to be done with family and friends.
• Expand health and fitness programs aimed at young
people, especially those that teach kids healthy habits in
the first five years of life.
• Develop wellness approaches that address social
connections, mental health and stress reduction, along
with fitness and nutrition.
• Improve prenatal care and early parenting support for
teenage, African American and Native American mothers,
who suffer disproportionately high rates of infant mortality.
• Use community leaders or networks to teach HIV/AIDS
prevention and other risk-reducing behavior.
• Engage older adults and the disabled in exercise,
classes and social get-togethers.
What's Working in Wellness & Preventative
Care: Local programs in Action
• The YMCA of Greater Seattle provides daily fitness
classes, outdoor activities, summer camps, and other
programs to more than 125,000 local residents a year,
serving people of all ages, races, faiths and incomes.
• The Barbershop Project, sponsored by Brother to
Brother, trains barbers serving the African American
community to teach others how to protect themselves
and their loved ones from HIV. The barbers also link
customers to free HIV training, testing and counseling.
• Delta Society improves human health through service
and therapy animals. Through its Pet Partners Program,
they train and screen volunteers and their pets to take
part in visiting animal programs in hospitals, nursing
homes, rehabilitation centers, schools and other
facilities.
Educate: Produce for
Better Health Foundation
• Non-profit 501(c)(3) consumer education
foundation
• Purpose: to motivate people to eat more fruits
and vegetables to improve public health
• Activities
– nutrition education and marketing programs, including
the new Fruits & Veggies—More Matters
– nutrition policy efforts
– industry and government collaboration
Serve
• Nutrition Assistance Programs
– Feeding America
– Meals on Wheels Association of America
– Bread for the World
– Share our Strength
– World Hunger Year
– Etc.
Convene
Healthy Eating Active
Living Convergence
Partnership
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Kaiser Permanente
The California Endowment
Nemours Health and Prevention Services
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention
Kresge Foundation
PolicyLink: Program Director
Healthy Eating Active Living
Convergence Partnership
• A collaboration of funders who have come
together with the shared goal of changing
policies and environments to better
achieve the vision of healthy people living
in healthy places
Vision
• Safe neighborhoods, communities and buildings support
physical activity as part of everyday life.
• Fresh, local, and healthy food is available and
affordable in all communities and neighborhoods.
• Healthy foods and beverages are promoted in grocery
and other food stores, restaurants, and entertainment
venues.
• Schools offer and promote only healthy food and
beverages to students.
• Schools promote healthy physical activities and
incorporate them throughout the day, including before and
after school.
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Vision (cont’)
• Workplaces and employers offer and promote access
to healthy foods and beverages and opportunities for
physical activity.
• Health care organizations and providers promote
healthy eating and active living in their own institutional
policies and in their clinical practices.
• Organizations, institutions, and individuals that influence
the information and entertainment environments
share responsibility for and act responsibly to promote
healthy eating and active living.
• Childcare organizations, including preschool, afterschool and early childhood settings, offer and promote
only healthy foods and beverages to children and
provide sufficient opportunities for, and promote,
physical activity.
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Values
• Promote equity and social justice
• Respect, recognize, and build upon the
assets and capacity of communities
• Value learning from new evidence
• Have the wisdom to change course as
dictated by experience
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Four core strategies that
leverage environmental change
1. Build support for environmental and policy changes
that promote healthy eating and active living.
2. Promote and support coordination and connections
within the healthy eating and active living field
3. Optimize and increase investments in order to enhance
the intensity, reach, and the number of community-based
initiatives focused on environmental and policy change to
enhance healthy eating and active living.
4. Foster market-based change so that healthy food and
opportunities for daily activity are available to all,
affordable, safe, convenient and attractively presented20
and marketed.
Within and Across Strategies
• Advance equity
• Promote cross sector policy, advocacy,
networking, and mobilization
• Foster leadership
• Move the evidence base forward
• Employ the best in strategic communication
• Leverage resources– within, across, and
beyond
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Infrastructure
• MOUs between partners
• Program Director Search
• Prevention Institute and Civic Results
Research
• PolicyLink as Program Director
• Tides as Financial Manager
• Committees and Working Groups
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Advocate
Three Ways to Involve Foundations
in Public Policy
• Three Phases in Policy Development
– investigative phase
– action for change phase
– implementation phase
http://www.fieldstonealliance.org/client/tools_you_can_use/01-31-07_power_in_policy_involve_fndtns.cfm
Investigative Phase
• Identifying public problems or opportunities
• Determining who is affected and involved in the
issue
• Gathering information about what options and
solutions exist
• Bringing key players together for deliberation
and discussion
• Example: Annie E Casey Foundation support for
the Health of Washington’s Children report on
childhood obesity: http://hspc.org/publications/pdf/hspc_AR_07_web.pdf
The action for change phase
• Planning for public policy and civic action
• Building the capacity of groups that will engage
in advocacy
• Organizing and mobilizing activities to influence
government decision makers or other
stakeholders to agree to a policy change or new
way of doing civic business
• Example: PolicyLink’s – Your Guide to the EAdvocacy Revolution
http://www.policylink.org/Projects/eAdvocacy/default.html
Implementation Phase
• Working with agencies and other groups to
put the agreed upon change into place
• Evaluating results
• Example: Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert
Foundation funded an assessment of the
nutrition environment of licensed child care
in Los Angeles County http://www.first5la.org/research/an-assessment-of-nutrition-and-the-nutritionenvironment-in-licensed-child-care-in-los-ange