A Year of Relentless Commitment to Equity & Progress

Voices for Healthy Kids believes change starts within the community. Passionate parents, teachers, neighbors, and advocates know best the healthy changes that will improve their communities’ health and lives. 

But for far too long, there has been a disconnect between powerful institutions in the public and non-profit sectors and the lived experiences of the communities they represent. Discriminatory policies, practices, and beliefs perpetuate this power imbalance, undermining community ownership and self-determination.  

This must change. 

Voices for Healthy Kids exists to amplify the needs and solutions of community leaders who are advocating for changes in policy, systems, and environments. Our investments are pointed at and directed to the people who know how to create change and improve health outcomes where they live. We’re coalition-builders, advocates, and connectors who use the American Heart Association's resources and political capital to recognize the tremendous power already within Black, African American, Latino, Native American, Alaskan Native, Hawaiian Native, Pacific Islander, and Asian American communities and families with low incomes.

By trusting, supporting, and investing in the people and places experiencing the greatest health inequities, we can remove barriers that stand in the way of healthy, thriving children and families everywhere.

From its inception, Voices for Healthy Kids has had an unwavering commitment to the inclusion of health equity across our organization, and we continuously seek improvement. To fully realize our mission, we must address the inequities, biases, and racism that purposefully exist in current systems and policies, and have intentionally marginalized or excluded some communities. We need to work to understand how they have impacted the lives of children, and then do everything we can to change our racist and oppressive systems. 

“We are committed to centering health equity and racial justice in our work. It is our responsibility to elevate communities that have been systemically marginalized and oppressed, in order to create sustainable policy solutions.”

— April Wallace, Health Equity Partnership Manager, Voices for Healthy Kids 

In collaboration with community groups, we are advancing policies that prioritize to people experiencing the greatest health disparities — those who are Black, African American, Latino, Native American, Alaskan Native, Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Asian American and families who have low incomes. Together, we are helping to build a more equitable nation. 

In FY 2020 - 2021, we:

• Diversified our Strategic Advisory Committee, which had historically only included national organizations, to include community-based organizations that represent Black and Indigenous communities and other people of color.

• Expanded our Policy Research Network to include equity-focused research experts who challenge us to see shortcomings in our research efforts, such as design and methodology; help get us closer to root causes of inequities; and become more anti-racist in our policy agenda. These experts’ knowledge is having ripple effects beyond Voices for Healthy Kids — reaching others with whom we work to dismantle inequities every day. 

• Expanded our research vendors and advisors to include a community of diverse evaluators who drive and support the practice of culturally responsive and equitable evaluation.

• Identified geographies experiencing the greatest health disparities and focused our grantmaking on these places. We also piloted strategies to ensure funding is directed to organizations with diverse leadership and that grantees are engaging communities of color, high-poverty areas, and areas with high food insecurity.

• Created a new Racial Equity in Public Policy Guide to advance both equitable policies and conversations about structural racism. We disseminated the guide widely and provided trainings to organizations, public health leaders, and funders nationwide on its use. 

• Continued to deepen our staff’s personal and professional understanding of racial equity through ongoing training, strategy sessions, and leadership commitments.

"Voices has always focused on equity. It drives me so much every day. They really got me engaged and feeling passionate about addressing health disparities.”

— Voices for Healthy Kids Grantee (submitted anonymously)

Case Study: Community Program Teaches D.C. Residents How to Be Their Own Best Advocates

Particularly in this past year, Voices for Healthy Kids has fostered a learning community—one where we weren’t just imparting campaign guidance, skills, and technical assistance but also learning from campaigns and communities. One way in which we did this was by intentionally building diverse relationships, including adding additional leadership to ask us hard questions and hold us accountable for centering racial equity in absolutely everything we do.

As always, the American Heart Association’s trusted science continues to play a foundational role in supporting Voices for Healthy Kids’ policy change efforts. It grows the evidence base for new and existing policies and provides trusted, evidence-based resources and materials to campaigns. 

Recognizing gaps in our lived experiences of racial and socio-economic inequities, Voices for Healthy Kids better aligned our research network to reflect the needs of the communities we serve. This required recruiting new research experts from the University of Miami School of Medicine, Urban Indian Health Institute, Urban Institute, County Health Rankings, and the Council on Black Health, and then launching the equity-focused Policy Research Advisory Group. These experts are part of our larger Policy Research Network, formed in 2014, and include Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded research partners, American Heart Association professional volunteers (clinicians and scientists), academic institutions, and individual researchers.

We also expanded our pool of our research vendors to include a community of diverse evaluators who expertly drive and support the practice of culturally responsive and equitable evaluation.

Finally, this year, we also conducted research and authored studies about urgent public health issues, such as sugary drink consumption, that disproportionately impact communities of color and families with low incomes. Voices for Healthy Kids Senior Manager for Policy Research, Dr. Stephanie Scarmo co-authored with Drs. Jim Krieger, Sara Bleich, and Shu Wen Ng Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Reduction Policies: Progress and Promise, which reviewed policies that have been used to reduce sugary drink exposure and consumption.

Service to Campaigns

Voices for Healthy Kids has always hoped to help our collaborators and grantees build advocacy skills as they work to improve the health of children in communities across the country. In years past, our team has traveled around the country convening advocates and allies for trainings and conferences. 

We had to learn how to work with grantees and organizations differently in 2020 and 2021. Pivoting quickly in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we converted what were typically in-person gatherings into virtual trainings. This shift allowed us to be more inclusive and reach more people. We trained not just campaign leaders but also their coalition partners, members, and supporters. And we helped them learn how to train others in the community.

We were grateful we could apply our expertise in a way that reached far more people than ever before. Along the way, we worked with communities to help build strong, inclusive campaign infrastructure that extends far beyond a single policy win or issue. Campaigns are now equipped and emboldened to initiate and sustain conversations among supporters and policymakers about how we make communities healthier for children.

“It’s definitely increased our capacity. All of these topics are things that I can carry on to future campaigns. And for the rest of my career.”

— Voices for Healthy Kids Grantee (submitted anonymously)

"I think [training and technical assistance] allowed us to think in a more structured way about campaigns. It gave us the support to be able to learn the policy process and build the capacity of our organization.”

— Voices for Healthy Kids Grantee (submitted anonymously)

Highlights from the year include:

• Developing a five-part  training for Kids Forward Wisconsin and its early childhood education coalition partners. In Effectively Communicating with Lawmakers and Beyond, participants learned about the legislative process, tips for communicating their story as it relates to legislative requests, and tips for effectively communicating with lawmakers and beyond to advance campaign priorities. They also had the opportunity to hear directly from Wisconsin legislative staff and to apply their learnings by participating in mock interviews and meetings. 

• Working with the Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham, we conducted a training series for the Women’s Policy Institute inaugural class of Fellows. The Fellows are community-based leaders who play a role in shaping and implementing policies that address the needs of women across the state. Fellows were trained in campaign planning, media advocacy, messaging, grassroots organizing, and social media.

• Creating a Racial Equity in Public Policy Message Guide to share with collaborators and allies, and then launching a training series to support its use. This resource is designed to advance both equitable policies and conversations about structural racism with policymakers.

“That health equity messaging guide has been super helpful, and I’ve shared that around to some partners as well. And I think it’s really well done and it gives really clear and straightforward information about how to make sure that equity is front and center in your campaign.”

— Voices for Healthy Kids Grantee (submitted anonymously)

Case Study: Case Study: Savannah Nonprofit Expands Victories with Voices for Healthy Kids Grants

Case Study: Voices for Healthy Kids Readies Alabama Women to Be Advocates for Policy Change

Grantmaking

In FY 2020 - 2021, Voices for Healthy Kids awarded 57 grants to organizations advancing racial and health equity to improve the health of children, families, and communities.  

• December 2020: $2.5 million to 16 community health organizations in 14 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC, to increase access to and incentives for healthy food and drinks and early education. The funding addresses economic security, such as ensuring children and families have access to quality, affordable early care and education, as well as food security and healthy eating by expanding state funding for SNAP, increasing access to no-cost water in schools, and building community support for healthy kids’ meals and taxes on sugary drinks.

• June 2021: $1 million to five community organizations to promote nutrition and economic security in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. The funding will help advance policies for improving health equity, with a focus on early care and education, food security and access to water in schools. 

“These grants are one piece of our commitment to solving deeply sown societal issues that keep entire populations from reaping the health benefits of economic security, food security, and access to safe places to be active.”

— Donna Arnett, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., B.S.N., chair of Voices for Healthy Kids’ Strategic Advisory Committee, Dean of the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, and past president of the American Heart Association

Voices for Healthy Kids also launched a preemption policy fund to protect local democracies and advance equity. The fund, backed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation, awards grants to organizations that protect the local right to advocate for and implement equitable policies and fight special industry groups that threaten the health and economic security of their communities. 

We made significant changes to the way we approach our grantmaking, too—using data tools to inform where we fund, whom we fund, and how we evaluate grant applications and success. 

Where We Fund

Using a detailed rubric based on data, we are able to prioritize areas in the country to fund: awarding grants to the geographies experiencing the greatest health disparities as measured by childhood obesity rate, percentage of the people of color, percentage of children under the federal poverty level and the percentage of children who are food insecure. 

Who We Fund

Voices for Healthy Kids believes in lived experiences as important qualifications in community led policy change work. We also acknowledge, currently and historically, that organizations led by people of color face more barriers and receive less funding than white led organizations. As breaking down racial and health disparities is key to the Voices for Healthy Kids mission, we are committed to increasing funding to organizations and campaigns that have leadership that is Black, African American, Latino, Native American, Alaskan Native, Hawaiian Native, Pacific Islander, and Asian American.

How We Evaluate

In addition to prioritizing location and evaluating leadership diversity, grant applicants are evaluated based on their potential to reduce health disparities, engagement and power building in communities most impacted, experience in changing policy, understanding of the historical context of the issues and inequities.

Policy Priorities

Voices for Healthy Kids focuses our efforts on the places that have been disinvested in for far too long: Black, African American, Latino, Native American, Alaskan Native, Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Asian American communities and families with low income.  We advance equitable policies that make the places where kids and their families live, learn, and play healthier. These policies make healthier options more accessible and affordable for all families. We work to: 

Special Report: COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Outcomes

Last spring, Voices for Healthy Kids quickly developed a new grant opportunity to provide rapid response dollars to help address the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; $1 million was awarded to organizations across 19 states, Puerto Rico, and the Lummi Nation in Washington state. Many of the organizations support communities hardest hit by the pandemic so they, too, needed to adapt quickly. With the COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants, these organizations were able to direct resources to the compounding hardships facing children and families around the country.

Acting with Urgency

Recognizing the devastating impact of COVID-19, the community organizations mobilized with purpose and urgency — focusing their advocacy on the health, food, housing, and economic insecurities intensified by the pandemic. Not only did the COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants provide direct dollars to support the work; they also created connections across communities and among advocates working on similar issues across the country. This enabled grantees to collaborate in new ways and expanded the Voices for Healthy Kids network to include new organizations that remain active in our network.   

Addressing Health Inequities

Grantees pushed to address health inequities, such as making COVID-19 testing and other critical health services more accessible in communities of color. Some organizations were able to have an impact just a few short months after grants were awarded, including grantees who advocated for the expansion of Medicaid in Missouri and Oklahoma.  Following on the work of grantees in these two states, advocates in North Carolina and Texas have also been raising public awareness and civic engagement around healthcare needs, laying the groundwork for Medicaid expansion.

Improving Access to Healthy Food

As COVID-19 exposed critical weaknesses in our food systems, grantees in several states also advanced policies to help children and families access healthy food. For example:

• Along with others across the country, Alabama Arise successfully engaged federal policymakers to push for an increase in monthly SNAP benefits and an extension of pandemic EBT benefits. At the state level, Nebraska Appleseed led a diverse coalition to push state policymakers to adopt the federal pandemic EBT option to provide food assistance resources to tens of thousands of households across Nebraska.

• Cultiva La Salud forged enduring community partnerships that allowed them to continue offering school meals to children in four school districts in California during the summer of 2020. By identifying and removing barriers to participation in school meal programs, their approach ensured that the greatest number of children over the greatest number of days received summer meals. Their efforts over the summer had a positive impact on fall meal operations in the targeted school districts, too.

• The Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice launched a campaign to apply the state’s funding from the federal CARES Act purchase of local produce by food banks. This campaign not only responded to an immediate need due to the pandemic; it also initiated a longer-term conversation about the role food nonprofits play in building resilient community-based food systems.

“This award afforded us the opportunity to bring together a very valuable partnership. Because of it, we could gather initial data from school districts and parents, which was foundational to our continued advocacy related to promoting school meals.”

- Cultiva La Salud

ACCESS Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services

Alabama Arise

American Diabetes Association

American Heart Association

Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families

Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance

Beyond Housing

California Association of Food Banks

California Walks

Center for Health Progress

Center for Rural Affairs

Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition (COPC)

Coalition for Social Justice Ed Fund

Community Farm Alliance

Community Health Council of Wyandotte County

Cultiva La Salud

DC Greens

Dine' Food Sovereignty Alliance

Equality Ohio Education Fund

Every Texan (formerly Center for Public Policy Priorities)

First Nations Development Institute

Fusion Partnership fiscal sponsor for SPACEs In Action

Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities

Hawai‘i Public Health Institute

Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice

HealthMPowers

Hispanic Unity of Florida, Inc.

Hunger Action Los Angeles

Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)

Kids Forward (formerly Wisconsin Council on Children and Families)

Lhaqtemish Foundation

MA Food System Collaborative

Maine Consumers for Affordable Health Care

Make the Road New York

Maryland Medical Society - MedChi

Michigan Chapter American Academy of Pediatric

Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative

NAACP Maryland State Conference

Nebraska Appleseed

New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty

Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy

Oral Health Kansas

Pinnacle Prevention

Policy Institute for the Children of Louisiana

Rhode Island Public Health Institute

Rural Economic Development Center, Inc.

Small Business Majority Foundation Inc.

SPUR

Stand Up Nashville

Statewide Alignment Group (SWAG)

Tenants and Workers United

Texas Organizing Project Education Fund

The Food Trust

The Women's Fund of Greater Birmingham

Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition

Together Louisiana

Voices for Georgia's Children

Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP

WEPOWER

Wholespire

Youth Development Institute