A message from Chet Hewitt

As we begin a new year, the foundation is beginning a new era. Over the next several months we will implement three initiatives and ramp up a fourth begun last year. Undergirding each of these efforts is a philanthropic model that has been under development within the foundation for the past year. The new approach maintains our longstanding commitment to working in partnership with communities, nonprofits and other institutions that share our mission of improving health and well-being in Northern California. It also moves us beyond our current model by positioning the foundation as a regional philanthropic intermediary. If you’re like most individuals I’ve discussed this with, at this point you’re probably wondering what that means. Let me provide some context before I explain in greater detail.

As most, if not all, who will read this article know, there is a lot of change taking place within the nonprofit sector. The combined effects of the economic downturn, including lower state tax revenue and stagnant investment returns, has led to cuts in state funding and lower levels of philanthropic support for health and human service programs. Most concerning is that these conditions are unlikely to improve anytime soon. The most innovative nonprofits are adapting by designing new practice models and developing new alliances that allow them to pursue their institutional missions with vigor, rather than simply finding ways to “weather the storm.” You can count Sierra Health Foundation among the members of this group.

For us, working to become a regional philanthropic intermediary means expanding our business model beyond being a grant maker to include being a proactive grant seeker. To be clear, it is not our intention to compete with local nonprofits for scarce resources; rather, we intend to position the foundation as both a landing point and launch pad for federal and national/statewide foundation-funded health initiatives that too often bypass our region. Accordingly, our strategy is to leverage the foundation’s competitive advantages – history, reputation, relationships and ability to co-invest – to increase the region’s competitiveness as a site for health-related innovation. Our goal, which will be pursued by regranting the vast majority of the funds we attract, is to increase the level of financial resources available to high-quality nonprofits working across our region on health equity, health determinant and health access issues.

Early evidence suggests the strategy has the potential to be successful. In this issue of Partnerships or in issues to come, you will read about the Community Transformation Grant funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Respite Partnership Collaborative funded with local Mental Health Services Act Innovation grant dollars. Our success in securing these opportunities is the result of work undertaken with external partners, and each will provide resources to local nonprofits, providing needed services and support to vulnerable individuals, families and communities. In the next several months we hope to announce our new youth justice initiative, for which we are working diligently to attract support. Notwithstanding these new efforts, we plan to continue our Responsive, Health Leadership and Policy and Public Education grant programs. Each has made significant contributions to our ability to pursue our mission.

Here at Sierra Health Foundation, we are excited about our new direction and have been working hard to strengthen our internal capacity to successfully implement and expand it. We have benefited greatly from the guidance offered by an engaged and committed board of directors willing to take thoughtful risk during these challenging times. Foundation leadership and staff have decided to do all we can to grow into the future, not retrench into it. For this we are incredibly grateful. While the final outcome of our new direction is not likely to be known for several years, we believe we are building an organization capable of making increasingly significant contributions to the health of the region for years to come. Stay tuned.

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Diane Littlefield promoted to vice president

Sierra Health Foundation President and CEO Chet Hewitt recently promoted Diane Littlefield to the position of vice president of programs and partnerships.

In this role, Diane oversees strategic program development and management of the foundation’s grantmaking portfolio, which includes policy, public education, responsive grants and initiatives, such as the Community Transformation Grant Healthy Sacramento Coalition, the Sacramento Region Health Care Partnership and the Respite Partnership Collaborative. As a member of the executive team, Diane also will take on an expanded role in representing the foundation in the community and developing strategic partnerships.

Diane has led the foundation’s Program team since February 2008, most recently as director of program investments. Before joining Sierra Health, she served as director of the Center for Collaborative Planning at the Public Health Institute, and was chief of chronic disease prevention for the Monterey County Health Department.

“Diane’s promotion to vice president is well-deserved,” said Hewitt. “Over the past four years, she has played an integral role in building the foundation’s ability to design and deliver innovative programs that promote health in our region.”

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Responsive Grants Program continues in 2012

Now in its fifth year, the Responsive Grants Program continues to support projects and programs that improve the health and well-being of people throughout our 26-county funding region. We will offer two funding rounds this year, with a total of $1 million available.

We plan to announce 2012 funding opportunities and post application materials for the first funding round online by early February.

See our Responsive Grants Program web page for more information about the program. Please send questions to grants@sierrahealth.org.

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Sierra Health Foundation to administer Sacramento County Respite Partnership Collaborative through new public-private partnership

The Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) is a California Initiative passed by voters in 2004. The Act addresses a broad continuum of prevention and early intervention, treatment and recovery needs and provides funding to help transform county mental health services across all age groups, including families.

Innovation is one of the components of MHSA. The Innovation component allows counties the opportunity to try new approaches that can inform current and future mental health practices by developing projects designed to increase access to underserved groups; increase the quality of services, including better outcomes; promote interagency collaboration and/or increase access to services.

The state defines an Innovation project as one that contributes to learning rather than focusing on providing a service. The project must be developed through a community planning process that is inclusive and representative, especially of unserved and underserved individuals.

In accordance with MHSA principles, Sacramento County’s Division of Behavioral Health Services (DBHS) conducted a comprehensive community planning process for the Innovation component. DBHS established a workgroup comprised of key stakeholders, which met from November 2010 through April 2011 to develop an Innovation project.

The Innovation Workgroup ultimately proposed that the funding be used to develop respite programs throughout the community in neighborhoods or home-like settings. A Respite Partnership Collaborative (RPC) would be formed to assist in selecting and recommending innovative respite programs. The workgroup decided that the actual respite services would be ancillary and the ultimate learning opportunity was to explore having an administrative entity implement the project to determine if a public/private endeavor could lead to new partnerships, increased efficiencies and, ultimately, improve services to community members experiencing a crisis.

The State Department of Mental Health and the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission approved the project plan and the county received funding to move forward.

Through a competitive selection process, Sierra Health Foundation was awarded a contract as the MHSA Innovation Component Respite Partnership Collaborative administrator. The foundation will establish and manage the RPC, coordinate with RPC members to establish funding goals and selection criteria for respite services grants, make grant awards, develop and implement an evaluation plan and communication strategy, and make recommendations for policy change to improve service delivery. A key evaluation activity will be to document successes and lessons learned from the partnership to support the development of a sustainable and effective respite services program.

“This partnership with the county taps into the best of two organizations, with the county’s commitment to deliver high-quality services that will improve outcomes for individuals and families in need of respite care, and the foundation’s infrastructure for community-based grantmaking and long-term commitment to engaging diverse and underserved populations in realizing better health outcomes,” said Sierra Health Foundation President and CEO Chet Hewitt.

Grant opportunities will be posted on Sierra Health’s web site as they become available this spring. In addition, special outreach will be conducted to ensure current and potential caregivers learn about funding opportunities.

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Clinics receive Health Reform Readiness grants

As part of our Sacramento Region Health Care Partnership, in December we awarded Health Reform Readiness grants to 11 clinics. Each clinic received $10,000 to engage in health reform opportunities and activities that will increase the clinic’s ability to be successful when the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented, such as training, grant writing, planning processes and other capacity building efforts.

The clinics selected for funding are:

• Center for Aids Research, Education and Services – CARES (Sacramento County)
• Center for Community Health and Well-Being, Inc. (Sacramento County)
• Chapa-De Indian Health Program, Inc. (Placer County)
• CommuniCare Health Centers (Yolo County)
• El Dorado Community Health Center (El Dorado County)
• El Hogar Mental Health and Community Services (Sacramento County)
• Health and Life Organization (Sacramento County)
• Midtown Medical Center (Sacramento County)
• Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (Sacramento County)
• Sacramento Native American Health Center, Inc. (Sacramento County)
• The Effort (Sacramento County)

Last year we launched the Sacramento Region Health Care Partnership, an initiative to strengthen the health care safety net in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties in response to the promise of health care reform. The goal of the Health Care Partnership is to find ways to improve access, care coordination and quality of the region’s primary care system, with a specific focus on community health centers. The ultimate vision is to increase and improve primary care access for low-income adults and children.

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Health Leadership Program review process under way

With the class component of the Health Leadership Program on hold, the review and redesign process for the program continues to move forward.

We hired consultant Harder+Company Community Research to work with an ad hoc alumni advisory committee to review the first 10 years of the program and analyze information collected from the Health Leadership alumni group. We are reviewing the draft report by Harder+Company and will use those findings to inform our next steps for the Health Leadership Program.

We will make program announcements on the Sierra Health web site and in Partnerships.

See the Winter 2012 issue of the Health Leadership Program e-newsletter.

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