Past Programs
Over 25+ years, we have refined our community-based partnership model, fostered policy advocacy and leadership development, and demonstrated measurable improvements in health outcomes and health equity, both locally and statewide.
Partnering with Communities
Kaiser Permanente Community Fund
The Kaiser Permanente Community Fund at Northwest Health Foundation was founded in 2004 with a $28 million initial investment by Kaiser Permanente and a commitment to supporting inclusive and collaborative efforts to improve health. KPCF awarded its first grants in 2005 and continued to make annual grants to nonprofit organizations in Oregon and Southwest Washington through 2016. Over the course of its lifetime, the Kaiser Permanente Community Fund awarded over $30 million dollars to more than 140 organizations, amplifying efforts to create a vibrant, healthy and fulfilling future for everyone. Learn more about the Kaiser Permanente Community Fund.
Healthy Beginnings+Healthy Communities
From 2015 through 2020, NWHF’s Healthy Beginnings+Healthy Communities initiative built power for healthy childhoods. This included supporting proven programs, like Playworks Pacific Northwest and improving dental health. It also included equipping communities with the tools and infrastructure to advocate effectively, funding advocacy trainings and backing issue campaigns for instance. Most significantly, Healthy Beginnings+Healthy Communities convened and funded a cohort of Community Collaboratives, which worked both together and separately. They invested in youth leadership development, created a racial equity narrative, led issue campaigns, endorsed candidates for office and more. Here’s a list of some of the Collaboratives’ accomplishments.
Health & Education Fund
From 2014 through 2022, CareOregon, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Meyer Memorial Trust, Northwest Health Foundation and Oregon Community Foundation partnered to create and implement the Health & Education Fund. We recognized a challenge; although health and education are intertwined, Oregon’s healthcare, education and early learning systems are disconnected. Together, by investing in assessing and supporting parent, child, family and community resilience across all our sectors, we sought to create change by supporting the following key outcomes: resiliency, self-efficacy/self-advocacy and self-determination, community capacity/community voice, and receptiveness/growth mindset. Read about some of the organizations and projects we funded.
Learning Together, Connecting Communities
NWHF has made a commitment to promote equity in the areas of race/ethnicity, geography and disability. In 2014-2015, NWHF funded eight organizations representing communities of people with disabilities. We wanted to strengthen the capacity of communities of people with disabilities to self-organize, and to build relationships with organizations and communities for a broader conversation about disability, race/ethnicity and geography. We also wanted to increase our grant making to communities of people with disabilities and learn how to be a better partner to these communities in the future. Read more about Learning Together, Connecting Communities.
ReFrame Narrative Fellowship
Our society sorts opportunity and access to health along lines of race, geography, disability and other aspects of identity. Northwest Health Foundation grantees are on the front lines of ending these biases, promoting the policies and leaders to achieve equity. But the narratives that have driven inequity are deep-seated, so narrative and strategic communications are essential. In 2021-2022, we hosted a six-month narrative fellowship in partnership with ReFrame for Oregon and SW Washington nonprofits. Read more about the narrative fellowship.
Inspiring Healthier Communities
Convergence Partnership
Meyer Memorial Trust, Kaiser Permanente Northwest and Northwest Health Foundation shared a vision of a food system that is healthier, more equitable, sustainable and economically robust. In 2011, we agreed that we could achieve more of an impact by collaborating with each other and our respective grantees to pursue this vision. We joined with the national Convergence Partnership (a collaboration of seven national funders and the CDC) to create a pooled fund at Northwest Health Foundation, which allowed us to both expand the communities and constituents engaged in food systems issues and to convene all of our partners to identify opportunities for collective impact.
Healthy Eating, Active Living
Everyone deserves the opportunity to live a healthy life. Unfortunately, conditions like where we’re born, learn and live limit our choices and our chances to be healthy. Research has shown that people are much more likely to maintain healthy weight when they can choose to live in neighborhoods where healthy food is available, walking and biking is safe, and parks and other community resources are easily accessed. Northwest Health Foundation's Healthy Eating, Active Living program invested in community-specific strategies to address the root causes that promote healthy eating and active living.
Public Health Infrastructure
Public health, as a system of public and nonprofit agencies, can play an important role in identifying and promoting policies that help make our communities healthier places to live, work, learn and play. Our Public Health Infrastructure program helped public health departments in public agencies and tribes become accredited and engage with Oregon's Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs) to more effectively meet the needs of communities.
Community Health Priorities
We believe communities are best equipped to determine their unique vision for health. The goal of our Community Health Priorities program was to engage people across our region to articulate a vision of a healthier life for everyone, and then develop policies to help achieve that vision. What did this look like? In one example, a group of residents from the Corvallis and Monroe areas sought to address health inequalities locally. They sponsored community forums to discuss health inequality using the Unnatural Causes documentary series as a tool. They trained local leaders to facilitate documented meetings for airing by podcast and on public TV. These forums inspired action, leading to members approaching county representatives to advocate for better access to healthy foods. This led to a new bus line that improved transportation options and access to grocery stores.
Oregon Active Schools
Nike, Kaiser Permanente Northwest and Northwest Health Foundation partnered with Active Schools to inspire a lifelong love of movement and bring the many benefits of physical activity to every child in Oregon. From 2014-2018, we provided focused grants to 139 elementary schools in Oregon.
Improving Healthcare
Healthcare Reform
Everyone deserves access to basic, quality healthcare. With around 600,000 uninsured people in Oregon and thousands of families facing bankruptcy and even death from lack of access to health insurance, Northwest Health Foundation joined many in advocating for reform. Through our Health Reform and Advocacy program, Northwest Health Foundation supported efforts and organizations working to increase access to healthcare. We focused on increasing grassroots engagement at the statehouse to expand coverage and redesigning the healthcare system to deliver better, more cost-effective care. The result? Oregon is pioneering healthcare reform.
Health Research
Through our Community-Based Participatory Research program, we helped communities and researchers collaborate in order to generate meaningful data and then use that research to advocate for change. We also supported health and medical professionals in pursuing academic and clinical research to improve health.
Healthcare Workforce & Infrastructure
A better healthcare workforce means better healthcare. Northwest Health Foundation has supported strategies to ensure that our human resources in healthcare can reach their full potential. We have helped in transforming nursing education, inspiring nurses to lead healthcare reform and increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the nurse workforce. These local efforts were a springboard for our national PIN partnership with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We also have supported hospitals, clinics and service providers in purchasing needed equipment and supplies.
Partners Investing in Nursing's Future (PIN)
Nurses are the largest component of the healthcare workforce, and their vigilance is critical to keeping patients safe and healthy. When people are most vulnerable, nurses are the healthcare providers they are most likely to encounter, spend the greatest amount of time with and depend on for their recovery. Partners Investing in Nursing's Future, our ten-year partnership with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation spanning from 2005 to 2015, addressed the nursing crisis (a national shortage of experienced nurses).