Forging Our Next Strategic Direction
This year, the Foundation for a Healthy High Point (FHHP) began a strategic planning process. Our goals are to reflect on the impact of our work to date, to examine the most pressing issues facing the community, and to consider the best ways for the Foundation to measurably improve health and wellness in the greater High Point region.
As we develop our next strategic direction, we want to listen to voices from throughout our community. We are eager to learn your thoughts on how we can work together to solve our community’s health challenges and improve the underlying conditions related to health such as housing, food, and transportation.
What do you think are the pressing needs that must be addressed for a healthy community?
What role can the Foundation play to be a leader for change in our community?
We want to hear from you. Please take our survey.
The survey is confidential and will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. After the survey, you will have the chance to enter a drawing for a $100 gift card. No information identifying you will be associated with your answers, and we will aggregate all findings in one report.
Looking Back
To inform our plans moving forward, we want to better understand the impact of our community investments since the Foundation’s launch in 2013. Our initial strategy funded internal organizational support to enable 46 nonprofits to optimize their services. Here are some examples of what we’ve learned:
- Healthy Beginnings Initiative: we supported long-term, systems-building efforts for early childhood development and readiness for school, including strong partnerships with Ready for School, Ready for Life and the Get Ready Guilford Initiative; and increasing access to effective maternal and child health programs.
- Healthy Minds Initiative: we invested in fostering collaboration among providers to increase access and remove common barriers to quality behavioral health care.
- Access to Care: we funded our local safety-net provider network to expand the availability of health care and social services for people without insurance.
- Capacity Building: we partnered with the Guilford Nonprofit Consortium to help nonprofit leaders realize new staff positions and assess the role of their boards.
This fall, we commissioned case studies for in-depth analysis of some of these community investments. In our first case study, we explored lessons learned from our support to expand an evidence-based nurse home visitation program to High Point’s most impoverished neighborhoods. First-time mothers receive free, personal nurse visits over the period from pregnancy until the child is two years old. Read the report.
Understanding Current Needs
We also want to make sure our focus remains relevant, that we respond to any changes in the community’s health needs. Which health issues are priorities today? What are the underlying causes of health problems and keys to overall improvement? To answer these questions, we examined the most recent local data from a variety of sources.
Many of our findings reflect national trends. For example, studies of maternal, infant, and child health outcomes show an equity gap—resulting in a high infant and fetal mortality rate for African Americans. A disproportionate number of children in greater High Point live in poverty than in the county at large, and economic disparities directly impact health in specific neighborhoods. Violence and inequalities in housing, education, income, and wealth remain a concern affecting health.
Community Engagement & Voices
For the last few months, we have built upon existing needs assessments to understand the negative health outcomes in the community, their root causes, and the key elements of change to be addressed by our strategic direction.
Dr. Stephen Sills, Director of the UNC Greensboro Center for Housing and Community Studies, has been working with us to gather data and stakeholder input relevant to our planning. We are conducting interviews and listening sessions, and surveying our community partners.
Looking Forward
We appreciate your participation in our efforts to forge a strategic direction that addresses long-standing health issues through systemic and structural changes.
On our website, you can find more information on our strategic planning initiative.