Voices for Healthy Kids 10-Year Progress Report

The Journey of Voices for Healthy Kids: Changing the World by Changing with the World

By Jill Birnbaum, Executive Director of Voices for Healthy Kids from 2013 to 2018 

An initiative that wants to change the world should be able to change with the world—and it can only do that if it is willing to challenge itself, take risks, make mistakes, and learn. 

Voices for Healthy Kids has always been that kind of initiative: open to experimenting, learning, and improving. 

When I look back on my time leading Voices for Healthy Kids as its first executive director, I feel enormous gratitude at having had such a unique and rewarding professional opportunity. 

I also remember the excitement of discovering and charting new territory with colleagues and partners who were passionate about making a real difference in kids’ health. 

A Hub for Driving State Policy 

Voices for Healthy Kids grew out of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) massive commitment to reverse the growing trend of childhood obesity. The Foundation sought a national partner to drive state-level policy on key issues affecting children’s health, such as improving the nutritional quality of school meals and snacks; reducing consumption of sugary beverages; increasing access to affordable, healthy foods; and expanding opportunities for physical activity. The American Heart Association (AHA) proved to be a good fit, with its national name recognition, deep policy experience, staff capacity, and network of advocacy groups in all 50 states. 

From the beginning, we worked to design new approaches to our advocacy work, and we always learned from each effort. For example, early on, we set out to introduce the initiative to local organizations through a regranting process. We assumed that because we had the money, the grant applications would pour in. All we had to do was make local, community-based organizations aware of the funding opportunity through a series of regional meetings and other outreach efforts.

It seems hard to believe now, but we did not receive many applications for our initial funding opportunities. And then we figured out why, by going out and asking: many of these small organizations did not have the infrastructure or lobbying capacity to apply for—and then administer—six-figure advocacy grants. 

Lesson learned, we overhauled our grantmaking strategy to be more flexible and accommodating to different sizes of organizations. Over the years, Voices for Healthy Kids has continued to evolve in this area, by making its grant application process easier and less time-consuming for applicants and by helping grantees build capacity to implement larger and more high-impact projects. 

Helping Local Organizations Build Power 

We also learned that some local groups had not engaged in lobbying before, and others had questions about how to do so legally. So, we held training workshops and developed resources. We made direct legal technical assistance available to all grantees through some of the best legal counsel. Many grantees have gone on to lead efforts on some of the most difficult advocacy campaigns where direct lobbying is critical, including sugary drink taxes and appropriations to provide incentives for the purchase of healthy food through SNAP.

While we have great partners that provide both financial and advocacy support aligned with the work, one of the most challenging areas we’ve encountered has been the use of preemption by state legislatures. Preemption prevents local governments from enacting and enforcing laws that powerful lobbying interests, like Big Soda and Big Tobacco, oppose. This remains a major challenge for Voices for Healthy Kids and for public health advocacy efforts. We have learned that to combat this antidemocratic use of preemption, we must build power in state legislative campaigns against preemption while building capacity and relationships, and work with local advocacy groups to enact laws and build champions at the community level. Otherwise, you will not have enough partners with real skin in the game when you face preemptive battles in state legislatures. 

Shifting to Health Equity 

When RWJF shifted its focus to health equity, we were energized by this commitment. But operationalizing equity—making it real in your everyday work—has proven to be extremely difficult. It forces you to question everything about everything you’re used to doing and why you’re doing it that particular way. 

The Foundation has been on this journey with us–connecting us with national leaders and experts who helped us learn how to operationalize equity. At the public policy level, one of the most transformational concepts I learned was the strategy of targeted universalism, in which you focus on a change for a specific population that also has benefits for the broader community. Think curb cuts for people living with disabilities. Curb cuts confer the greatest benefit on people who use wheelchairs or other mobility aids, but they also help parents with baby strollers and shoppers with grocery carts.

This approach has informed many of Voices for Healthy Kids’ strategies for advancing policies that improve health and well-being for everyone, but especially for those who are furthest from opportunity. For example, improving access to healthy school meals and snacks is good for all kids, but it’s especially valuable for kids whose families have difficulty affording healthy food on a consistent basis. Targeted universalism also helped us think differently about how to build coalitions for moving certain policies and being more inclusive; it even affected how we made certain kinds of grants. 

A Never-Ending Journey 

There is a lot more to operationalizing equity than one policy strategy. In recent years, Voices for Healthy Kids has made remarkable progress in building community voice and inclusion into its grantmaking process and in working to become an antiracist initiative.

It is a never-ending journey—which is important for an initiative like ours, on a quest to learn how to improve and make life healthier for all children. And as it continues to learn, Voices for Healthy Kids continues to evolve to meet the needs of a changing world. I am grateful to have been an early part of this important effort.

A Path Toward Equity 

By April Wallace, National Equity Strategy & Partnerships Sr. Manager of Voices for Healthy Kids

Years ago, when I was brand new to the Voices for Healthy Kids team, I was attending my very first Voices for Healthy Kids Summit. I was beyond excited but also nervous as it would be the first time I would meet my teammates in person. 

As part of each summit, the planning team creates an immersive experience rooted in the history of a different city each year. This particular year, we were in Louisville, Kentucky. There is a deep and rich civil rights history there, but even more importantly, a painful and sobering part of American history–the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The planning team had prepared for months, and many of us were looking forward to a walking tour of Louisville to see landmarks and some of the historical sites, where we could mark moments in history. A professor from a local university was our tour guide, and on this particular day, it was my role to introduce her so we could begin the “experience.”

As she began her introduction of the walking tour, she made numerous inferences to slavery as if it had been some type of willful immigration to America. Her cavalier commentary on the history of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement became more painful each moment that passed.

I froze. It was appalling and dismissive, yet I said nothing. What just happened? What should I have done differently? Why didn’t I speak up? How did I let this happen? My mind was racing, and my heart was heavy. I felt embarrassed, as if I had somehow failed my first assignment as the new health equity and partnerships manager. I replayed the words over and over in my mind trying to figure out when would have been the right time to just stand up and say ENOUGH! Instead, I felt this shame for letting down our grantees, especially those of the African Diaspora. 

Leaving that day, I reflected on how we could show up differently so that we would never experience a moment like that again. I also knew that the burden of the moment was not mine to bear. There was work to be done, to heal and learn from this experience. What seemed like one incident or blip in time proved to be a catalyst for authentic change and a call to action for every staff member. We moved forward but took many lessons from that day (and others) to forge a new vision for equity.

When I started at Voices for Healthy Kids five years ago, I was the only Black woman on staff and one of five staff members who were of African, Hispanic, or Asian descent. In the first five years of the initiative, my predecessors worked diligently to develop a framework and understanding of health equity. I felt honored to walk in their footsteps. Naively, I assumed my lived experience would be enough to allow me to lead the equity strategy work. I thought I knew exactly “what to do.” I had no clue!

Since Voices for Healthy Kids’ inception, our goal has been to think deeply and intentionally about how we center the voices within communities that have not historically been represented or even ignored. We have had to examine and take full inventory of the ways in which we interact and conduct business from day to day. We have had to challenge ourselves to think differently and do the internal work in acknowledging our blind spots, biases, and dominant cultural norms that have not been of service to the people and communities that we want to elevate and amplify. 

To effectively guide and support staff development, we implemented a comprehensive health equity and racial justice learning framework that is ongoing for all Voices for Healthy Kids staff.  It is not enough to simply check boxes to say we have completed cultural competency training.  We know we must dig so much deeper!

We look at all our policy solutions with historical context, and we are choosing to have all of the hard and uncomfortable conversations about unintended consequences and our individual journeys to understanding. What we have learned is that equity must be internalized before it can be operationalized and socialized within the initiative.   

Advancing Equity in Grantmaking

We’ve overhauled our grantmaking strategy and processes to be more open and accessible to diverse applicants and to be driven by the needs and priorities of our community partners. We lived through a global pandemic and saw the disproportionate impact it had on Black and Brown people. Amid responding to the needs of the pandemic, we watched the media cover the numerous murders and unjust investigations of Black men and women. But we knew that we could not afford to stand by and do nothing when people’s lives were literally hanging in the balance.

With our COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants, organizations in 19 states, Puerto Rico, and the Lummi Nation in Washington state received over $1 million to help children and families in under-resourced communities gain better access to healthy food, health care, and income supports.

To make the grantmaking process more anti-racist, we created the Fair Start Index, a data tool that guides our grant dollars to communities of highest need and opportunity. We learned that holding ourselves accountable to our equity goals required us to be more intentional about where investments are needed. In addition, we identified geographic areas experiencing the greatest health disparities and focused grantmaking in these places.

Pursuing an Anti-Racist Policy Agenda

On the policy front, we continue to convene health equity roundtables with thought leaders, practitioners, and subject matter experts to better understand the existing policy priorities and explore emerging issues related to maternal and child health that could inform our policy agenda. We work together with community groups to advance policies that prioritize 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 with low incomes. To support this work, we have an entire equity-focused Policy Research Advisory Group. These research experts collect and analyze data that help us get to the root causes of inequities while addressing shortcomings in our research design and methodologies and helping us become more antiracist in our policy agenda.

We also created two Racial Equity in Public Policy Guides to advance equitable policies as well as conversations about structural racism. We disseminated the guide widely and provided training to organizations, public health leaders, and funders nationwide on how to use it.

We continue to work to deepen our staff’s personal and professional understanding of racial equity through ongoing training, strategy sessions, and leadership commitments. And we’ve revamped many of our internal policies and practices, including the recent formation of the Voices Equity and Culture Cohort which piloted in December 2022. The cohort was designed to create a more immersive experience into exploring how our very practices and protocols can be more deeply centered in equity, while also developing guidelines and standards for our own Culture and Practice Guide. The cohort will eventually rotate every staff member through it, giving everyone an opportunity to explore their own roles and responsibilities more deeply, with equity at the center. And our staff has become more diverse–in race and ethnicity, lived experience, and in thoughts. I am amazed every day at the growth of our team and their diligence to operationalize equity in all things!

Cultivating Equity in Our Hearts and Minds

We are learning to center and thread inclusive and equitable practices in the very fabric of our initiative. This includes our training, technical assistance practices, and grantmaking protocols in campaign planning, execution, implementation, and evaluation, as well as in our culture.

As important as all the work and achievements are, what’s even more important is that we lean into an equity mindset. It means having difficult and uncomfortable conversations, listening with attention and intention, and using what we’ve learned to transform our culture and practices. It means huge investments of human energy and time, with the recognition that learning and growing with an equity mindset never ends, it only evolves.

The past five years have taught me to be patient in knowing that change takes time. We are certainly not the initiative we used to be, but we are now equipped and knowledgeable about how we can continue to challenge ourselves and commit to bigger and bolder equity goals. 

Most importantly, I am a Black woman and mother of two young black sons. This work is personal. I am invested in the work of Voices for Healthy Kids because my sons’ livelihood depends on the policies that shape the community that I live in and other Black and Brown communities across this nation.

Community Voices

Continuing Our Equity Journey: What’s Ahead for Voices for Healthy Kids? 

By Lori Fresina, National Vice President and Executive Director of Voices for Healthy Kids

One of the aspects that I love most about my role at Voices for Healthy Kids is the opportunity I have to help build a healthier, more equitable future for every child in the United States. As national vice president and executive director, I am honored to lead an incredible team of compassionate and justice-focused individuals who are driven to advocate for the youngest members of our communities and their families and caregivers.

As I look ahead to what’s next for Voices for Healthy Kids, I want to emphasize that the journey we are on is a collective one and that we are all working together to codefine our initiative’s future. With this vision guiding our work, Voices for Healthy Kids is dedicated to advancing health equity, dismantling structural racism in its many forms, and realizing the goals of our change-making grantees to improve the lives of infants, toddlers, expectant parents and all others impacted by our work. 

The Lessons We’ve Learned …

The last few years have opened many people’s eyes to the stark disparities and injustices that pervade our country, as well as the root causes behind them. From the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 to the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic and the hyper-local curriculum battles taking place at the school board level, these moments of reckoning have spurred many to acknowledge and address the structural barriers that prevent everyone from living their healthiest possible lives. And our team at Voices for Healthy Kids is no exception. 

What we’ve learned is that change cannot happen externally until it can happen internally. Since 2019, we have been consciously working to become an antiracist organization through staff training and professional development designed to help us recognize and combat white-dominant culture in our everyday practices. This journey of antiracism has touched every part of Voices for Healthy Kids, from policy development and evaluation to research, technical assistance, and partnerships. 

Unsurprisingly, change does not happen magically; nor does it happen overnight. But having a “head start” on this work has made a world of difference for Voices for Healthy Kids, and we are now positioned to collaborate with partners and peer organizations on their own journeys as leaders and learners together. 

… And How We’re Implementing Them

If we don’t maintain the current moment’s urgency around advancing health equity and achieving racial justice, we will have missed out on an invaluable opportunity to build a better tomorrow for every child. We all want our kids to thrive, to have great places to learn and play, and to grow up healthy and safe. Those goals are the same across every community—no matter its race, ethnicity, or income level—and they are achievable when policies are guided by and center the people most affected by them. 

Helping our community-based grantee organizations achieve a policy win—whether by expanding nutrition benefits, improving access to childcare, or ensuring paid family and medical leave—is always integral to our work at Voices for Healthy Kids, but it is only one of the measures of success that we consider when we evaluate our operations. 

Now we ask ourselves: Are the campaigns we work with achieving their desired goals? Has their capacity for advocacy grown? Are they driving the process of change that they’re seeking to create? When grantees are able to grow in these ways, we know that we’re helping to contribute to their future success and to a more equitable tomorrow. 

Perhaps that means they are better situated to win a larger grant from another funder down the road, or that they can leverage the American Heart Association’s brand and reputation to validate their programs. Whatever success looks like to a grantee, we’re committed to helping transfer our own power and resources to achieve it.

Continuing the Journey

I like to think of our work at Voices for Healthy Kids as if we’re participating in a relay race. Our grantee communities have been running the race for years, and we’re energized and excited to step in and do our part to help them cross the finish line. When campaign coalitions are stronger and better situated to succeed, so are the communities and families they serve. Nothing makes me prouder than knowing that Voices for Healthy Kids grantees and others we work with have used the experience of a campaign to build skills, relationships, and political capital that they can apply to all of their future policy efforts. That’s the big win.

Grantee Spotlight: Suquamish Tribal Early Learning Fund

In Washington state, a brand-new $7.5 million tribal early learning fund will help deepen the connections that thousands of young American Indian children have with their cultural heritage, strengthen their healing and resilience, and improve their health.

With support from Voices for Healthy Kids, the Suquamish Foundation joined forces with the WSA—the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP (the state Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program)—in persuading legislators to establish the flexible fund for tribal early learning—the first of its kind in Washington. Grant dollars from the fund will be spent to:

• Support native language revitalization

• Hire mental health therapists and consultants

• Facilitate outdoor classrooms and learning

• Allow early learning providers to offer Indigenous food to young children

Nigel Lawrence, the Suquamish tribal member who led the campaign at the state legislature to establish the fund, says that Voices for Healthy Kids was a critical partner, providing strategic guidance, training, communication support, and other resources.

A Desire to Work with Tribes

But the most important thing that Voices for Healthy Kids brought to the table? “The fact that they wanted to work with the tribes,” Lawrence says. “That’s why we applied for this grant. They made tribes a priority in their grantmaking.”

That eagerness to work with tribes was not something Lawrence had encountered before—in fact, just the opposite. Lawrence recalls that one of the challenges he faced at the legislature came from lawmakers who questioned why, instead of seeking their own funding line, the tribes didn’t simply apply for existing state early childhood education funds.

“Our answer was: We do, we have, and we’re not getting the grants,” Lawrence says. “Tribes have complicated needs, too. This is a first—at least in Washington—for tribal-specific, early childhood education.”

The fact that Voices for Healthy Kids actively sought grant applications from tribes was important to the Suquamish, who applied for funding with the Suquamish Foundation because of its 501c3 tax status. Once the funding came through, Lawrence was impressed by how Voices for Healthy Kids engaged him and his colleagues with support, meetings with legal and other Voices for Healthy Kids representatives, and myriad resources.

The Importance of Listening

Voices for Healthy Kids staff also participated in active listening as Lawrence shared with them the importance of storytelling in Suquamish culture. The time they spent building relationships with Lawrence and other members of the Suquamish team was critical, he says.

During the planning and execution of the legislative campaign, Voices for Healthy Kids’ national senior advocacy consultant, Ben Schmauss, was Lawrence’s main contact. Lawrence and his team had monthly calls with Schmauss to discuss strategy. “He really helped us refine our mission and goals,” Lawrence notes.

Lawrence says that Schmauss also nominated him for a leadership development program, where he received one-on-one mentorship on how to run a campaign. He learned the ins and outs of how to develop a campaign plan, find allies, make connections, and more. He used everything he learned during the campaign to establish the early education grant fund.

The campaign process took about two years; the first year was all about developing a plan and building relationships. Then, when the 2023 legislative session opened, “we hit the ground running hard,” Lawrence says. At various points, he intervened with key legislative leaders and even the governor’s office. At another point, one state lawmaker who supported early learning programs suggested collapsing the tribal early learning fund into an existing fund. After Lawrence met with the lawmaker, the proposal for a separate tribal fund was on firm ground.

Lawrence stressed the importance of having a solid campaign team, including two lobbyists—one for the Suquamish Tribe and one for the WSA—who arrange many of the legislative meetings. The WSA brought additional strong staff support to the campaign, he notes.

Reclaiming Cultural Heritage Through Education

Lawrence believes that many of the health and socioeconomic problems that American Indians today experience—such as high rates of suicide and dropping out of high school—stem from a loss of their cultural connection, which, ironically, is in large part due to the forced placement starting in the 1860s of hundreds of thousands of American Indian children in boarding schools run by the federal government and churches.

“The cure for that is getting our culture back, learning from that, and healing,” he argues.

Although many tribes now educate their children themselves, it is often difficult for them to access curricula and educational materials that speak to their culture, and even more difficult to access traditional language teachers. That’s one way in which the new tribal grant fund can make a big difference.

By seeking out partnerships with tribes and listening to what they wanted, Voices for Healthy Kids was able to provide support that helped the tribes achieve their goal—and expand their children’s opportunities for health and well-being.

Grantees

• ACCESS Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services

• Active Transportation Alliance

• ActiveSGV, a Project of Community Partners

• AHA Alabama

• AHA Alaska

• AHA Arizona

• AHA Arkansas

• AHA California

• AHA Colorado

• AHA Connecticut

• AHA DC

• AHA Florida

• AHA Georgia

• AHA Iowa

• AHA Kansas

• AHA Kentucky

• AHA Louisiana

• AHA Maryland

• AHA Massachusetts

• AHA Michigan

• AHA Minnesota

• AHA Minnesota (Good Food Access Fund Minnesota)

• AHA Mississippi

• AHA Missouri

• AHA Montana

• AHA New Hampshire

• AHA New Jersey

• AHA New Mexico

• AHA New York

• AHA New York City

• AHA North Dakota

• AHA Ohio

• AHA Oklahoma

• AHA Oregon

• AHA Pennsylvania

• AHA Rhode Island

• AHA South Carolina

• AHA Tennessee

• AHA Texas

• AHA Utah

• AHA Vermont

• AHA Virginia

• AHA Washington

• AHA West Virginia

• AHA Wisconsin

• Alabama Arise

• Alaska Trails

• American Diabetes Association

• American Indian Cancer Foundation

• Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights

• Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families

• Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance

• Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO)

• Beyond Housing

• Bike Easy

• Bikes Belong Foundation (BBF)

• BREADA

• BTA Oregon

• California Association of Food Banks

• California Bicycle Coalition Education Fund

• California Food Policy Advocates

• California Head Start Association

• California Walks

• Can Do Houston

• Capacity Builders, Inc.

• Care for Monterey County Kids - Yes on Measure Q

• Center for Health Progress

• Center for Planning Excellence

• Center for Rural Affairs

• Charleston Hope

• Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition (COPC)

• Children at Risk

• Children First PA (formerly PCCY)

• Children's Action Alliance

• Children's Advocacy Alliance

• CLIMB CDC

• Coalition for Social Justice Ed Fund

• Coalition for Tobacco-Free West Virginia

• Communities Creating Opportunity

• Community Farm Alliance

• Community Health Council of Wyandotte County

• Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC)

• Cultiva La Salud

• DC Greens

• Denver Health Foundation

• Denver Streets Partnership

• Dine' Food Sovereignty Alliance

• E3 Foundation (Educate, Empower, Elevate)

• Environment American Research & Policy Center

• Equality Ohio Education Fund

• Every Texan (formerly Center for Public Policy Priorities)

• Fair Farms Maryland

• Fair Food Network

• Faith in Texas

• First Nations Development Institute

• Florida Impact to End Hunger

• Florida Rising Together (Statewide Alignment Group)

• Fuerte Arts Movement

• Georgia Bikes

• Georgians for a Healthy Future

• Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities

• HARRISON HOPE

• Hawai‘i Public Health Institute

• Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice

• Hawaii Public Health Institute (formerly Healthy Communities Hawaii)

• Healthy Black Families, Inc

• Healthy Communities of Brownsville

• Healthy Minds Policy Initiative

• Healthy Savannah

• Healthy Schools Campaign

• Hispanic Unity of Florida, Inc.

• Horizon Foundation

• Hunger Action Los Angeles

• Hunger Free Colorado

• Hunger Free Oklahoma, a fund of Tulsa Community Foundation

• IAF Northwest

• Idaho Head Start Association

• Idaho Smart Growth

• Idaho Walk Bike Alliance

• Illinois Public Health Institute (IAPO)

• In-Advance

• Indiana Coalition for Human Services

• InnerCity Struggle

• Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)

• Investing in Place

• Kansas Black Leadership Council

• Kansas City Healthy Kids

• Kentucky Youth Advocates

• Kids Forward (formerly Wisconsin Council on Children and Families)

• Kids Win Missouri

• La Semilla Food Center

• La Union del Pueblo Entero

• Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy, Teachers College Columbia University

• Lhaqtemish Foundation

• LiveWell Colorado DBA Nourish Colorado

• Living Streets Alliance (LSA)

• Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC)

• Los Angeles Food Policy Council

• MA Food System Collaborative

• Maine Consumers for Affordable Health Care

• Make the Road Nevada, a project of Make the Road States, Inc.

• Make the Road New York

• Market Umbrella

• Maryland Medical Society - MedChi

• Massachusetts Public Health Association

• Massachusetts YMCAs Inc

• Michigan Chapter American Academy of Pediatric

• Mission Readiness

• Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative

• Missouri Workers Center

• Morning Star Baptist Church

• NAACP Gary Indiana

• NAACP Maryland State Conference

• NAACP Mississippi

• NC Early Education Coalition

• Nebraska Appleseed

• New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty

• New Mexico Voices for Children

• New York Immigration Coalition

• North Carolina Alliance for Health

• North Carolina PTA

• North Dakota Head Start Association

• Northwestern Medical Center

• Ohio Mayors Alliance Foundation

• Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy

• OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon

• Oral Health Kansas

• Oregon Public Health

• Palmetto Cycling Coalition

• Parents Leading for Educational Equity

• PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center, Inc.

• Pinnacle Prevention

• Policy Institute for the Children of Louisiana

• POWER

• Power Coalition

• Preschool for All Coloradans

• Project Bread - The Walk for Hunger, Inc.

• Public Health Advocates

• Reinvestment Partners

• Rhode Island Public Health Institute

• Rodel

• Rural Economic Development Center, Inc.

• Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community

• Slow Roll Chicago

• Small Business Majority Foundation Inc.

• South Carolina Alliance of YMCAs

• Southern Institute for Public Life

• Southwest Women's Law Center

• SPUR

• Stand Up Nashville

• Stapleton Foundation DBA Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities

• Teach Not Punish Family Resource Center, Inc

• Teen Health Mississippi

• Tenants and Workers United

• Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC)

• Tennessee Justice Center

• Tennessee Obesity Taskforce

• Texas Organizing Project Education Fund

• The Beloved Early Education and Care Collective (BEE)

• The Food Trust

• The Fund for a Healthier Colorado

• The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi

• The Suquamish Foundation

• Three O'clock Project

• Together Louisiana

• Tulane PRC

• Upstream Public Health

• Urban Health Partnerships, Incorporated

• Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth (VFHY)

• VOICES for Alabama's Children

• Voices for Georgia's Children

• Voices for Racial Justice

• Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP

• WEPOWER

• West Virginia Healthy Kids

• Wholesome Wave

• Wholespire

• Wisconsin Bike Fed

• Women's Foundation of Alabama

• YMCA Austin

• Youth Development Institute

• Youth United for Change (YUC)