St. Joseph Health’s efforts to provide community care extend to a partnership fund that has invested more than $200 million in areas of Southern California, Northern California and Texas—all markets where the Irvine-based health system has hospitals and other facilities.
“Over 25 years ago, it was created to encourage work outside of the hospital walls,” said Gabriela Robles, the fund’s executive director.
The fund’s work outside the walls takes on various forms, including establishing fixed-site and mobile clinics and offering support for various and broadly defined community-based healthcare initiatives.
“Each one of our hospitals, our ministries, work very closely with the clinics,” Robles said.
Six years ago, it helped start Medi-Kids, which is now known as the Orange County Children’s Health Initiative.
“We took the lead in bringing that together,” Robles said.
The community partnership fund also played a role in the establishment of the Valencia Community Clinic, the St. Jude Community Clinic, and a park in the Valencia neighborhood of Fullerton.
It provided seed money, and community residents later sought out development block grants from the federal government, Robles said.
“What’s beautiful is those residents are now helping other neighborhoods in Fullerton, to teach them how to advocate,” she said.
Robles noted that the health system defines health “very broadly” and is interested in funding resident-directed efforts in particular for community partnership fund grants under its community benefit initiative.
Residents “are the agents of change in their communities,” she said.
The community partnership fund provides money for what Robles calls “capacity building” in various communities where residents advocate before their local governments for things such as safer streets, access to healthcare, improved public education and better school menus.
Food banks, homeless shelters and dental clinics have received money from the community partnership fund.
As an example, Robles noted that the fund has worked with food kitchens to help them develop sustainable business plans to combat homelessness in Humboldt County.
Each of St. Joseph Health’s acute care hospitals pledges to invest 10% of its net incomes into the fund.
“This is to ensure that we are addressing the needs of the poor,” Robles said. “While it’s a good amount of money, it’s not enough.”
The fund calls for partnerships with nonprofit organizations and other funders. The community partnership fund identifies efforts that fall within its mission and grants organizations money to support their work.
“What’s really important about this fund is that it funds efforts that are already started in the community,” said St. Joseph Health Chief Executive Deborah Proctor. “It’s not for us to start a new effort.”
