Build Healthy Places Network

Build Healthy Places Network (BHPN) connects health departments and healthcare organizations to the mission-driven, largely nonprofit community development sector in order to foster cross-sector partnerships and leverage community-centered investments to reduce poverty, improve health, and advance racial equity. Community Development Corporations (CDCs) are neighborhood-level, non profit organizations that implement community projects that improve the health of neighborhoods. Projects range from the development of affordable housing to job training and health services. Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) are private, nonprofit financial institutions that are 100% dedicated to delivering responsible, affordable lending and services to help low-income, low-wealth neighborhoods and persistently marginalized communities of color join the economic mainstream.

Health departments can connect with BHPN to access a vast network of thousands of national and neighborhood-based community development and finance organizations that may be well-positioned as potential partners to tackle the social determinants of health and work toward health and racial equity.

Resources for health departments:

BHPN has a number of tools to support deeper inquiry into the health-related work of community development:

• A Jargon Buster breaks down language barriers across sectors. The Jargon Buster is one way to begin to understand the terms, acronyms, and work of community development investment.
• The Fact Sheet Series provides a handful of key examples of how neighborhood investing can address critical issues like social isolation, mental health, and homelessness, and the Community Close Up series delves into the details of successful, cross-sector collaborations targeting health.
• A Primer for Multi-Sector Health Partnerships in Rural Areas and Small Cities specifically focuses on too-often overlooked and under-resourced parts of the country.
• The Partner Finder provides links to several important networks representing thousands of community development and financial health/asset building organizations at work in neighborhoods across the country. A first step to collaboration is identifying organizations and their leaders who share your communities and neighborhoods of focus.
• BHPN’s national Healthy Neighborhood Investments Policy Scan and Strategy Map provides practical policy ideas gathered from across the country.
• Lastly, BHPN’s online Crosswalk Magazine contains essays written by professional journalists sharing stories of how health and community development can work together to improve population health. Several that might be particularly compelling include essays on Preventing gentrification & displacement, Healthcare building grocery stores in food deserts, Housing for the elderly, and Black-led community development organizations tackling health & racial equity.

To learn more about BHPN, please visit their website and click on their About Us page for an overview.

The National Urban League

The National Urban League is a historic civil rights organization dedicated to economic empowerment, equality, and social justice. Founded in 1910 and headquartered in New York City, the Urban League collaborates at the national and local levels with community leaders, policymakers, and corporate partners to elevate the standards of living for African Americans and other historically underserved groups.

With 91 affiliates serving 300 communities in 36 states and the District of Columbia, the Urban League spearheads the development of social programs and authoritative public policy research, and advocate for policies and services that close the equality gap. At the community level, the National Urban League and its affiliates provide direct services that improve the lives of more than two million people annually.

Mission

To help African-Americans and others in underserved communities achieve their highest true social parity, economic self- reliance, power, and civil rights. The League promotes economic empowerment through education and job training, housing and community development, workforce development, entrepreneurship, health, and quality of life.

Vision for Healthcare

Every American has access to quality and affordable health care solutions.

To determine whether the National Urban League can help you increase health equity in the communities that you serve, work directly with your CDC Program Consultant. We have established a path through them for us to work with your programs.

To learn more about the National Urban League, visit https://nul.org.

Cicatelli Associate Inc

American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network

For 20 years, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) has made cancer a top priority for policymakers at every level of government by empowering volunteers across the country to make their voices heard to influence evidence-based public policy change that saves lives and reduces the cancer burden. ACS CAN’s partnership with CDC and the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control has been critical to this work, particularly to increase access to lifesaving cancer prevention and early detection services to those who are uninsured or underinsured. Each year ACS CAN advocates to protect and increase funding for the National Breast and Cervical Cancer and Early Detection Program at both the federal and state level to support the program’s education, outreach, screenings and patient navigation services, and advocated strongly to reauthorize the program in 2007.

American Cancer Society

National Association of Chronic Disease Directors