Online Program

289270
Convergence partnership: Advancing equity through shared leadership and decision-making


Monday, November 4, 2013 : 3:30 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.

David Fukuzawa, MS, The Kresge Foundation, Troy, MI
The Convergence Partnership (Partnership) is a collaborative of eight funders with the shared goal of changing policies and environments to better achieve the vision of healthy people living in healthy places. The Partnership holds equity as a core value and recognizes that it needs to be a central focus of the work and that community engagement is a crucial element for making changes sustainable. Through collective action, the Partnership is demonstrating a new way for philanthropy to work and an equitable approach that leads to triple-bottom line benefits to people, place, and the economy. Through shared leadership and decision-making, pooled investments, and joint activities, the Partnership has helped to institute policy changes across the country, as well as catalyzed new public and philanthropic resources, new alliances, new partnerships, and new voices joining the effort to achieve more equitable communities. This session will discuss the Partnership's efforts and investments in advancing and promoting equity as the means to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to participate and prosper. Representatives of the national Convergence Partnership, together with local and regional foundation affiliates, will discuss the challenges and enabling elements to a successful model of shared leadership and decision-making as well as describe how they have been able to create collective impact through joint grantmaking. This requires effective partnerships that crisscross fields; strategies that that are equity-focused; and affects change in places that lack healthy systems and structures.

Learning Areas:

Diversity and culture
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Describe model for philanthropic partnership to which shared decision-making and leadership and joint grantmaking are core tenets. Identify core areas of interest and policy priorities among funders supporting efforts to advance healthy people in health places. Discuss variations in philanthropic policy, equitable strategies, and environmental change efforts occurring regionally and nationally.

Keyword(s): Health Disparities, Collaboration

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am on the steering committee of the Convergence Partnership and also direct the health program of The Kresge Foundation. Kresge supports projects that build healthy communities
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.