Community Innovations for Racial Equity RFP Overview

Build Healthy Places Network (BHPN), with funding from The Kresge Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, has launched the Community Innovations for Racial Equity Initiative to focus on building local Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)-led community development capacity, supporting community power, exploring innovative community ownership models, and addressing the barriers and gaps within community development and health partnerships to effectively propel racial equity. This initiative builds on BHPN’s first round of Community Innovations from 2019 to 2020. Check out lessons learned from this initial round here.

The goals of the Community Innovations for Racial Equity initiative are to:

1. Facilitate new connections and deepen existing connections between BIPOC-led Community Development Corporations (CDCs) and other peer organizations, resources, tools, and the larger national dialogue.
2. Embed capacity within these organizations to undertake community ownership models and health strategies and, from a position of strength, engage with healthcare organizations (hospitals, healthcare systems, and health payors), CDFIs, and other mission-driven investors for co-investment in neighborhood revitalization efforts.
3. Champion race-conscious partnerships, policies, approaches, and investments that magnify their impacts and outcomes.
4. Lift up and increase awareness of insights, tools, resources, and best practices for community-led and community-owned approaches for others doing work in this area to use nationally. Examples include collective ownership of land and buildings through land trusts and co-operatives and related efforts to deepen community control and benefits from investments.