Public Health in Oregon - Join The Conversation

Apply for a CHP grant to energize your neighborhood or community!

By: NWHF Staff | Posted on: February 23rd, 2011 | Share:
Categories: Economic Issues • Education • Public Health • Rural Health • Urban Issues

Would you like a kick-start the process of transforming your community into a more health-focused place to live?

Consider applying for a small Community Health Priorities grant to support your community engagement efforts.

We are looking for neighborhoods and communities that want to build momentum for community action. For example, you might want to host community meetings to brainstorm ideas and develop a plan for change. A CHP grant would be able to help support flyers, publicity, and even refreshments for your meetings. In exchange, we ask that you document the meetings, share with us who attended, and share with us the results of the conversation. We’d love it if you also told others about our project and ask others to join our conversation and network!

Our goal with these grants is to support grassroots-led community discussions that ask community residents to think about health beyond just medical care. We also want to grow a list of community members supportive of public health initiatives and willing to join our efforts to advocate for better public health programs.
Along with the financial benefit, the process will allow you to learn from previous grantees and even gain some advice and counsel from CHP staff. You can read about some of this work in our Creating a new Culture of Health ad.

An example of such a grant is the Health Equity Alliance in Corvallis - a group of residents from the Corvallis area seeking to address health inequalities locally.

During spring 2008, this group formed to discuss health inequality within the Corvallis community using the Unnatural Causes documentary series as a tool. After these meetings, they concluded that more similar sessions would be very helpful to address health issues at a broader level in their community.

Health Equity Alliance seeks to “engage community stakeholders in discussions to broaden understanding of factors that contribute to health inequality and to identify opportunities for how public and private organizations can contribute to the development of healthy communities.”

With support from a Community Health Priorities grant, the Health Equity Alliance sponsored the following community forums:

Corvallis Forum April 2008 – 120 people
Corvallis Community Café October 2008 – 85 people
Monroe Community Café October 2008 – 20 people

In addition, they trained local leaders to facilitate presentation of the Unnatural Causes Series and provided technical assistance for the Monroe community grant to Oregon Solutions. To document the meetings, they collected names and email addresses and took photos. The mayor attended the first meeting and the community discussion were recorded and aired on their local public TV station (Channel 29).  A local university group even turned their discussions into podcasts available for free on itunes.

The Health Equity Alliance plans to continue to sponsor community forums and small group discussions, facilitate coordination between groups and serve as a resource to our group’s members and the community. They also plan to identify mechanisms to partner with other groups who are using health equity assessment tools to better understand the root causes of health inequality at the local level.

Here is a list of past and current grantees.
You can also read about their reports back to us, such as 1) Latina women in Jackson County 2) Residents in Eugene, OR discuss health equity and the commercialization of kids, 3) Immigrant day laborers in Portland.

In 2011, we will prioritize groups who will host conversations about the County Health Rankings report, and ask communities to discuss why and how their county ranked, and the role of county health departments and other public agencies in addressing the factors measured in the report. (Here is Washington State’s report.)  You can find discussion tool kits and view a webinar about this project and how to use the report in your community here. We also encourage organizations to use the Unnatural Causes documentary series. Applicants who are selected for funding are expected to send at least one representative to a grantee meeting in Salem on April 13th from 9am-4pm. Details will be sent out with the award letter.
You can apply for a grant for up to $5,000.

Applying for a CHP grant is a simple two step online process.

Step 1:  Submit your intent to apply hereby March 10th 11:59pm. Once NWHF verifies that your organization meets the eligibility requirements, an email will be sent to the lead project contact with a link to the online grant application along with a username and password.  Step 1 involves completing a 1-page form. Please allow up to two business days to receive these instructions.

Once you receive the e-mail verifying your eligibility, complete Step 2

Step 2: Complete and submit your online application by March 28th 11:59pm. The application asks for the standard organizational, contact, demographic and budget information requested of all NWHF applicants.

The application also includes a short narrative section that asks the following questions. The entire narrative section should represent approximately 2 to 3 pages. Note the character limits for each question:

1.    Describe your organization, coalition, or association and its role in the community. [2,500 character limit. Approximately 2/3 of a page.]

2.    How you will engage your community and why do you think that is a good way to do so? (Will you use town hall formats? Screen Unnatural Causes or another documentary series and then hold a discussion? Will you discuss the County Health Rankings report? Do you want to use social drama?).  [2,500 character limit. Approximately 2/3 of a page.]

3.    What will the nature of the conversation be? Where will they be held? How will you document the meetings? [1,500 character limit. Approximately 1/3 of a page.]

4.    When will the series begin and end? What might be the next steps? [750 character limit. Approximately 1 paragraph.]

5.    What is the requested amount and how will the funds be used? (Please attach a simple budget) [750 character limit. Approximately 1 paragraph.]

6.    How will you promote the Community Health Priorities blog/ Facebook/ Twitter sites as one way to continue the dialogue and to connect with others working on similar issues? [750 character limit. Approximately 1 paragraph.]

For more information on this program, contact David Rebanal of the Northwest Health Foundation at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). 

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