For the past 10 years, The BUILD Health Challenge® has brought together community-based organizations, health care partners, and public health agencies to catalyze change in communities across the country. The BUILD model and its five principles—Bold, Upstream, Integrated, Local, and Data-driven—offers a potential model for other funders and leaders seeking to invest in community health.
“This structure [of the funding collaborative], rooted in speed, flexibility, and reach, creates a symbiotic relationship between the two groups of funders, and allows regional philanthropies the opportunity to inform the national agenda and contribute deep insights as to what works locally.”
In celebration of its tenth anniversary, BUILD has released “Lessons Learned on Investing in Collaborative Approaches to Community Health,” the second brief in a series about collaborative’s journey to support communities in advancing health equity.
The brief highlights key elements of BUILD’s approach and investments: a well-designed collaborative structure, funders’ investment in a culture of learning, and using a learning-driven mindset to evolve the collaborative’s trust-based practices.
Equal Measure serves as BUILD’s long-term learning and evaluation partner, helping surface lessons about how BUILD’s five principles interact and support progress on the local level. We have designed and supported feedback loops of learning and data from both grantees and community members that have helped the initiative evolve and pivot, increasing its focus over time on deep, authentic community engagement, decision-making, and leadership, as well as explicit attention on racial justice.
DOWNLOAD THE BRIEF
