Our Director of Programs, Nora Garcia, was named a Grantmakers in Health 2020 Terrance Keenan Institute Fellow last year. This month, Grantmakers in Health published a piece Nora co-authored with some of the Fellows for their Views from the Field titled “The Moment to Transform Health Philanthropy is Here.”  The piece centers on

Communities in our service region will feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for a long time. We are in a critical moment to address their long-term health and wellness needs with an eye towards systemic change. Become part of our dynamic team to help implement our bold, community-centered approach

The COVID-19 pandemic has given us an opportunity to reflect upon our work in philanthropy and what we must do to maximize our impact as we look ahead towards recovery. Our President Maria Pesqueira and Director of Programs Nora Garcia recently engaged in a conversation with Grand Victoria Foundation and

Photo Credit: Health & Medicine Policy Research Group –  CHWs from pilot organizations come together, pre-pandemic, to learn from each other and share experiences to strengthen their work in community. “The resources that we offered have changed. The needs have changed. The outreach has changed. We need to reinvent.” Jocelyn

As COVID-19 wreaked havoc in our region last year, it was clear that the impact on BILPOC communities would be devastating. How and why did this happen? Last summer, a group of 20 local foundations, including Healthy Communities Foundation, and other cross-sector partners came together to form the Mapping COVID-19

Our Board Members Amalia Rioja (Chair), Craig Huffman (Treasurer), Dr. Yesenia Lopez, and Caronina Grimble recently signed on to a letter published by Crain’s Chicago Business that provides a guide on how philanthropy can diversify its endowment investments as a way to achieve racial equity. They signed on along with

The Healthy Communities Foundation extends our deepest condolences to Adam Toledo’s family and all who loved him—we join in their grief. We also extend our condolences to all who have lost someone beloved to police violence. We support the Little Village community, a community in our service region, as we

The Chicago Mayor’s Office recognized our President Maria Pesqueira and Healthy Communities Foundation’s contributions to advance health and wellness at their Women’s History Month Community Champions virtual event on March 30th. The evening highlighted various leaders in Chicagoland who have gone above and beyond to advance gender equity.  As an

On March 29th, our President Maria Pesqueira, along with Adela Cepeda, an Independent Corporate Director, and Cristina De La Rosa from our partner Erie Neighborhood House, participated in “Latino Voices: A WTTW News Community Conversation.” The discussion, hosted by Araceli Gómez-Aldana from WBEZ Chicago, highlighted Latinas in Chicago for Women’s

On March 16th, the senseless killings of eight people, including six Asian American women, in Georgia hit home for us. We recognize that this display of racism and hate is not new or an isolated incident; it is another unfortunate example of the significant uptick in anti-Asian violence reported by Stop AAPI Hate and a manifestation of a deeply rooted, centuries-old

As part of our Reimagine Health series and in honor of BIPOC Mental Health Month, our Program Officer Tina Ramirez Moon talks about the importance of centering mental health and wellness in our work as our region navigates the challenges brought on by the pandemic. She shares what we heard

This month, we launch our #ReimagineHealth series that will talk about our approach towards an equitable recovery in our region, feature the on-the-ground work we support, and explore how we can reimagine our systems and practices to build healthier, stronger communities. To kick off the series, we highlight our recently

The Trust-Based Philanthropy framework represents and guides our current efforts towards an equitable COVID-19 recovery in the Healthy Communities Foundation region. The framework is relatively simple, and its concepts collectively signal a different approach from transaction-oriented grantmaking and align with the core components of our strategic plan that center on deep engagement,

In her second blog of this series, Gillian Knight, our Program Associate, shares an update on where Healthy Communities Foundation is on its journey towards implementing an evaluation framework that is rooted in equity and is informed by community. Listen to or read her blog below. “Alignment” is the intention

As cities across the nation and within the greater Chicago region began to launch vaccine roll–out and distribution—a much-anticipated end-phase to the COVID-19 pandemic—whispers of frustration have strengthened to become a critical public discourse of compounding racial/ethnic and health inequities for Black, Latinx, Arab and Indigenous communities. Health department officials, peer funders, and health institutions were genuinely surprised by the deep racial/ethnic inequities present in

Amalia Rioja, whose tenure as our new Board Chair began in January, talks with our President Maria Pesqueira about what the road to recovery looks like for our region, the role of Healthy Communities Foundation, and what she looks forward to in her new role. Listen to or read their conversation

This post originally appeared in the Grantmakers in Health’s “Views from the Field” in the January 2021 Bulletin. COVID-19 has not been an equal opportunity pandemic. It has impacted Latinx, Black and Indigenous communities, immigrants, older adults, and the uninsured more profoundly than the general population. At the start of

This year has been like no other. Our region and communities, particularly our Legacy & Equity zip codes, have devastatingly felt the impact of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism. Our President Maria Pesqueira and IDHS Secretary Grace Hou, whose term as Board Chair ends at the end

This post originally appeared on the Exponent Philanthropy blog. The coronavirus pandemic has opened many of our eyes to how sectors and systems do or don’t address the ever-growing health and income inequities in this country. We can approach this realization in two ways: We can admit the inadequacies of

We are happy to introduce Lynda Murphy as the new Project Manager for The HUB! Since 2018, The HUB, a free digital resource directory and referral platform, has served as an important tool to connect local nonprofit health and social service providers and community members in Chicago, west suburban Cook