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Category: Our Work in Action

Funding Organization

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Funding Organization

The Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) partners with foundations, philanthropic organizations, and other funding partners to advance innovative public health solutions, strengthen community capacity, and create lasting impact.

Funding organizations play an important role in bringing new ideas to life and supporting the systems, organizations, and communities working to improve health. As a trusted nonprofit partner, IPHI works with funders to design, implement, evaluate, and sustain initiatives that respond to complex public health challenges.

Our partnerships bring together funding resources, public health expertise, community knowledge, and innovative approaches to address the issues that matter most to communities. We help funding partners translate their priorities into effective programs, engage the right partners, strengthen organizational capacity, measure progress, and ensure that investments are responsive to community needs.

IPHI has experience managing and supporting complex, multi-partner initiatives across the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and beyond. Our work spans health equity, workforce development, community health, food systems, violence prevention, health promotion, public health infrastructure, and other areas that influence the health and well-being of communities.

We understand that successful philanthropic investments require more than funding alone. They require strong relationships, thoughtful strategy, meaningful community engagement, effective implementation, and a clear understanding of what is working and why.

Here are some of the agencies we’ve worked with:

Academic Institutions

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Academic Institutions

The Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) partners with colleges, universities, and academic institutions to strengthen the public health workforce, advance research and evaluation, and connect academic expertise with real-world community needs.

Academic institutions play an important role in preparing the next generation of public health professionals and generating the knowledge needed to improve health outcomes. As a trusted public health partner, IPHI works alongside faculty, researchers, students, and academic leaders to translate research into practice, build workforce capacity, and create meaningful opportunities for learning and collaboration.

Our partnerships support a range of initiatives, including workforce development, training and technical assistance, research and evaluation, community engagement, strategic planning, and public health education. We help academic partners connect with communities and public health organizations while bringing practical, community-informed perspectives into academic and workforce development efforts.

IPHI also works with academic institutions to strengthen the public health workforce pipeline. Through internships, fellowships, training programs, applied learning opportunities, and other collaborative initiatives, we help students and emerging professionals gain the knowledge and experience needed to address today’s public health challenges.

Here are some of the colleges and universities we’ve worked with:

Health Care Providers

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Health Care Providers

The Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) partners with health care providers and organizations to strengthen care delivery, connect health systems with communities, and advance better health outcomes.

Health care providers are essential partners in creating healthier communities.

As a trusted public health partner, IPHI works alongside hospitals, health systems, health centers, clinical providers, and other health care organizations to address the factors that influence health beyond the exam room. We bring public health expertise, community insight, workforce strategies, research, evaluation, and technical assistance to help providers respond to complex challenges and improve the health of the communities they serve.

Our work helps health care organizations strengthen partnerships, engage patients and communities, build and support the health workforce, improve access to services, and develop strategies that address health disparities and the social and economic conditions that shape health. We also help connect health care providers with community-based organizations, public health agencies, and other partners to create stronger systems of care and support.

Here are some of the organizations we’ve worked with:

Community Organizations

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Community Organizations

The Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) partners with community organizations to engage residents and community leaders in planning and decision-making, design and implement programs that reflect local needs and experiences, and build organizational and community capacity.

The people closest to a community often know best what it needs to thrive.

At IPHI, we live and work in the region. We work alongside community-based organizations, coalitions, neighborhood leaders, advocacy groups, faith-based organizations, and other community partners to turn local knowledge and lived experience into action. We know that improving health takes more than a single program or organization. It takes relationships, shared learning, trusted voices, and partners who are willing to work together toward meaningful change.

IPHI brings public health expertise, resources, facilitation, research, evaluation, communications, workforce development, and technical assistance to partnerships designed around the priorities of the communities they serve.

Here are some of the organizations we’ve worked with:

Government

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Government

The Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) partners with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies to strengthen public health systems, expand workforce capacity, and improve health outcomes through innovative, evidence-informed solutions.

Government agencies play a vital role in protecting and improving community health.

As a trusted nonprofit partner, IPHI provides the expertise, flexibility, and collaborative approach that government organizations need to address today’s complex public health challenges. We help agencies build organizational capacity, develop and implement strategic initiatives, engage communities, evaluate programs, strengthen the public health workforce, and translate policy into action.

Our team has extensive experience managing large-scale public health initiatives across the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, while supporting partners nationwide. Whether advancing health equity, modernizing public health infrastructure, responding to emerging health needs, or fostering cross-sector collaboration, we work alongside government leaders to develop sustainable solutions that create healthier, more resilient communities.

Together, we turn strategy into action and innovation into measurable impact. Here are some of the agencies we’ve worked with:

Giving Tuesday 2022

Posted on by iphiadmin

Giving Tuesday 2022: Join Us In Our Fight for Healthy and Equitable Communities

Join Us In Our Fight for Healthy & Equitable Communities  

IPHI strengthens health systems and policy, enhances conditions that promote health, and builds community capacity to ensure equitable health opportunities for all. We believe all people and communities should have equal opportunities to live and be healthy. 

This Giving Tuesday, consider a gift to IPHI as we work to dismantle health inequities and strengthen communities in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. IPHI’s work includes:  

  • Community Health Worker Initiatives: Working with our partners, IPHI supports the development, coordination, and evaluation of Community Health Worker (CHW) initiatives. IPHI helps conduct CHW and clinical care team training programs; design, coordinate, and evaluate CHW programs; build awareness about the value of CHWs across the community; grow and sustain the CHW workforce and CHW services, including laying the groundwork for policy change to enable CHW certification and more sustainable financing; and develop the Center for the Community Health Workforce and CHW professional networks.
  • Healthy & Equitable Communities Training  IPHI offers training and technical assistance to organizations and coalitions. Our training fuse theory with practice and allow participants to apply the knowledge and tools presented in training and implement them in their everyday work to create healthy, equitable, thriving communities.

Here are some of our targeted initiatives and coalitions in the region: 

District of Columbia  

The DC Healthy Housing Collaborative is a multi-sector coalition seeking to address substandard housing conditions that contribute to significant health issues affecting District of Columbia residents. The DC Healthy Housing Collaborative envisions a DC where all housing promotes health, wellness, and safety and is affordable. DC will be a city where all are welcome and can thrive in strong, resilient, and well-resourced communities.  

Maryland 

Prince George’s Food Equity Council works to improve the public health and community well-being of all who live, work, study, worship, and play in the County. The FEC believes every resident, regardless of race, class, or zip code, should easily access healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate, and locally produced foods. FEC partners and volunteers work to increase food storage and distribution, improve access to food assistance resources, and increase access to healthy food for food-insecure residents at risk for diabetes through enrollment in our food-as-medicine program, Prince George’s Fresh.   

Virginia 

ImmunizeVA is a statewide immunization coalition that strives to protect the health and well-being of all Virginians by achieving and maintaining complete immunization protection through education, advocacy, statewide collaboration, and the promotion of equity.  

Please consider a gift to help dismantle health inequities and strengthen our region. 

Maryland state employees: Charity Campaign (MCC) – 46-3039129 

Virginia state employees: Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign (CVC) – 201412 

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Giving Tuesday 2021

Posted on by Taya Jarman

Giving Tuesday 2021: Join Us In Our Fight for Healthy and Equitable Communities

This Giving Tuesday, consider a gift to IPHI as we work to dismantle health inequities and strengthen communities in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.

The Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) works to improve health systems and policies, enhance conditions that promote health, and build community capacity to ensure equitable health opportunities for all. We believe that all communities should have equal opportunities to live and be healthy. Here are highlights of some of the programs and initiatives we’ve supported in 2021.

  • Community Health Worker Initiatives: Working with our partners, IPHI helps develop, coordinate, and evaluate Community Health Worker (CHW) initiatives. IPHI conducts CHW and clinical care team training programs; designs, coordinates, and evaluates CHW programs; builds awareness about the value of CHWs across the community; grows and sustains the CHW workforce and CHW services, including laying the groundwork for policy change to enable CHW certification and more sustainable financing; and supports the development of the Center for the Community Health Workforce and CHW professional networks.
  • The DC Healthy Housing Collaborative is a multi-sector coalition seeking to address substandard housing conditions that contribute to significant health issues affecting District of Columbia residents. The DC Healthy Housing Collaborative envisions a DC where all housing promotes health, wellness, safety, and is affordable. DC will be a city where all are welcome and can thrive in powerful resilient and well-resourced communities.
  • Healthy and Equitable Communities Training To address the preventable and unjust health inequities found in communities throughout the United States, IPHI offers trainings and technical assistance to organizations and coalitions. Our trainings fuse theory with practice and allow participants to apply the knowledge and tools presented in training and implement them in their everyday work to create healthy, equitable, thriving communities.
  • ImmunizeVA is a statewide immunization coalition that strives to protect the health and well-being of all Virginians by achieving and maintaining full immunization protection through education, advocacy, statewide collaboration, and the promotion of equity.
  • Prince George’s Food Equity Council works to improve public health and community well-being of all who live, work, study, worship, and play in the County. The FEC believes every resident, regardless of their race, class, or zip code, should be able to easily access healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate, and locally produced foods. FEC partners and volunteers work to increase food storage and distribution, improving access to food assistance resources, and increasing access to healthy food for food insecure residents at risk for diabetes through enrollment in our food-as-medicine program, Prince George’s Fresh.
  • COVID Response and Recovery: We continue to partner with the Virginia Department of Health and Fairfax County Health Department to hire, train, and employ COVID-19 public health workers deployed locally for COVID-19 emergency response. IPHI is working side-by-side with VDH and Fairfax County Health Department to contain COVID-19 through effective case investigation, contact tracing, and community outreach and support. IPHI has also launched the Community Health Workers for a Healthy Virginia as a strategic intervention to assist at-risk communities and populations in the response and recovery from COVID-19.

Learn more about IPHI and how your donation can propel IPHI into 2022. For more information including ways you can get involved, visit here.

The Food Equity Council’s COVID-19 Food Assistance Response in Prince George’s County, Maryland: A One-Year Update 

Posted on by Taya Jarman

Release Date: April 01, 2021

The Food Equity Council’s COVID-19 Food Assistance Response in Prince George’s County, Maryland: A One-Year Update

It’s been one year since Prince George’s County saw its first COVID-19 case. Since then, over 79,000 Prince Georgian’s have been infected and over 1,300 have died.

As we mark this somber occasion, the Prince George’s County Food Equity Council (FEC) is looking back on both the health and economic hardship that impacted the county as well as new opportunities that surfaced as members of the FEC stepped up to lead the county’s COVID-19 food security response.

This past year, the FEC saw existing social, health, and economic inequities unearthed and underscored. Prince George’s County, a majority Black county, experienced the highest death rates in Maryland from complications related to COVID-19. Food insecurity, particularly among vulnerable populations, skyrocketed by 20 percent leaving over 150,000 residents food insecure. Unemployment rose as businesses shuttered and families struggled to keep food on the table as school meal services stalled. These disruptions were a shock to our county’s systems, and agencies were unprepared for the social service demands our county residents required.

Seeing this need, last March, the FEC pivoted our work to coordinate the diverse partners and agencies working to address emergency food assistance relief and response. Over the past year, the FEC has:

  • Created and launched the county’s only comprehensive online food assistance directory in English and Spanish, which has received over 120,000 hits since it launched a year ago;
  • Provided resident food navigation services including connecting residents to food assistance providers and 211 staff;
  • Launched the county’s first food recovery platform to reduce food waste and increase food donations to food assistance providers and pantries;
  • Secured funding to purchase three refrigerated trailers to increase cold storage capacity for food assistance providers throughout the county;
  • Co-Hosted 20 virtual convenings for over 70 food assistance providers, non-profit partners, and County agencies and leadership in partnership with the Department of Social Services;
  • Coordinated with our County Executive’s office, county agencies, regional food councils, and the philanthropic community to ensure we are taking advantage of resources available and implementing promising practices and that there is widespread awareness of the food access needs of residents;
  • Provided direct food donation coordination to partners resulting in over 10,000 daily prepared meals delivered to residents in need at the peak of the pandemic;
  • Provided County Council members and the County’s Library System with resources to share with their clients and constituents;
  • Coordinated with food businesses such as regional food hubs, restaurants, farmers markets, and growers to connect them to market opportunities that address both their needs and the needs of food-insecure residents; and
  • Provided educational resources and advocacy support for food businesses, growers, farmers markets, and restaurants.

As vaccines become more widely available and infection rates slow, there is much cause for celebration. However, at the same time, we know that the food insecurity crisis is far from over. Over the course of the next year, the FEC remains committed to continuing our work to address the food assistance response and support residents and families in need through coordinated resources and information sharing. In addition, the FEC is actively working with the County’s Food Security Task Force to develop recommendations to increase food security and build a more resilient and crisis-ready food system. 

We extend our gratitude to the many partners that have and continue to support our work. As a volunteer-based council incubated within the Institute for Public Health Innovation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, the FEC depends on the generous support of community members and organizations. If you are able to support us with a contribution of any size, please donate here. 

For more information on the Prince George’s Food Equity Council and to find out how to provide support, contact Sydney Daigle, [email protected].

Fairfax County Health Department Partners with IPHI to Expand Contact Tracing Efforts

Posted on by MichaelRhein

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –May 28, 2020

Fairfax County Health Department Partners with IPHI to Expand Contact Tracing Efforts

Today, the Fairfax County Health Department (FCHD) in Virginia announced a new partnership with the Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI) to hire and train staff for COVID-19 contact tracing efforts.

Across the country, state and local jurisdictions are ramping up contact tracing as a central component of the fight against the pandemic.  Contact tracing is the process of communicating with individuals who have probable or diagnosed COVID-19 illness to help them recall everyone with whom they have had close contact and potentially exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Public health staff then reach out to those contacts to inform them of their potential exposure. As staff speak with contacts, they help individuals assess risk and share information and instructions for self-monitoring, isolation and staying healthy.

To help the Health Department scale up its contact tracing efforts, IPHI will recruit, hire and train contact tracing staff, community health workers, and other staff as needed who will be deployed to work as integrated members of the FCHD COVID-19 response team.

For more information on the initiative, see Fairfax County Health Department’s press release.

Information on available job opportunities and how to apply for the positions can be found on IPHI’s careers page at:  https://www.institutephi.org/careers/

For more information on contact tracing, please visit:  https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/health/novel-coronavirus/contact-investigations.

Virginia Re-establishes Statewide Immunization Coalition in Response to Falling Immunization Rates

Posted on by MichaelRhein

Virginia Re-establishes Statewide Immunization Coalition in Response to Falling Immunization Rates

With seed funding from the Virginia Department of Health, IPHI is working to re-establish a statewide immunization coalition in Virginia, called ImmunizeVA. The first coalition meeting will take place virtually in May 2020 after the initial launch was postponed in March due to the COVID-19 crisis.

ImmunizeVA is composed of public health professionals and community leaders from across Virginia working together to improve immunization rates in the Commonwealth. The vision of ImmunizeVA is a future where the quality and length of life of Virginians is not decreased by diseases that can be prevented by immunizations. ImmunizeVA will serve as an important and essential strategy to increase and improve immunization rates. With immunization rates falling across Virginia dramatically, the launch of this coalition is absolutely essential to improve coordination, public education and resource development for this critical public health issue.

For more information on ImmunizeVA, email [email protected].