By Anna Creegan, MA and Laila Hussain, MA, MBA, The Rippel Foundation
The AAMC Center for Health Justice surveyed a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults in late 2023 and found that people consider freedom from trauma, violence, and crime almost equally as important as access to nutritious food and safe drinking water. A declarative finding, it shows that Americans recognize that vital conditions are as important as urgent services are to having a healthy and thriving community.
Yet, having beliefs and intentions is far from making the vision a reality.
In The Rippel Foundation’s Pulse Check on Shared Stewardship for Thriving Together Across America survey, we polled nearly 350 individuals who play a role in fostering equitable, thriving communities and asked them: What will it take to live up to our potential to be good stewards of an equitable and thriving future? The majority of people surveyed — leaders from health care, business, and community agencies — agreed on the values and necessary conditions for thriving. Ninety-two percent agreed that we should use our wealth to create the conditions for thriving. However, only 26% said they were working on systems change.
Figure 1
What’s more, in new research from the FrameWorks Institute, there is a sense of injustice and hopelessness that change will come. Seventy percent of Americans believe that “the system is rigged” by an elite few at the expense of regular people.
Figure 2. The importance of vital conditions becomes even easier to see when combined alongside urgent services in a full well-being portfolio. In times of crisis, urgent services are lifesaving and life altering. But urgent services cannot produce the experience of thriving. The path to thriving goes through vital conditions. They shape the choices, opportunities, and challenges that we encounter throughout our lives, from birth to death and across generations.
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Image credit: The Rippel Foundation
At Rippel, we believe that no matter how strongly people believe a system is rigged — no matter how fraught with income inequality, racism, and other forms of injustice — systems can be transformed through shared stewardship. We can define success in terms of driving shared action and values. We can look for common interests, mutual benefits, and opportunities to connect across boundaries, understanding the need to balance investments in urgent services with investments in vital conditions. We can join with others to transform our systems by building belonging and civic muscle, because we know that we can — and must — thrive together.
The Rippel Foundation works in partnership with the stewards representing people who identified systems change as their most important goal. These representing leaders understand that shared stewardship requires everyone in the growing movement to thrive together to advance equitable health and well-being for all toward an ambitious goal: a future in which everyone thrives — no exceptions.
What have these stewards taught us?
It takes shared vision to disrupt the status quo.
Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) in Pennsylvania is using the vital conditions framework to shift mindsets and deepen alignment among their health care network partners and community organizations. New concepts and a shared language of vital conditions helped LVHN physicians, clinicians, and leaders see the health and well-being of all Lehigh Valley residents more cohesively and the potential for new community health strategies. And new methods for measuring and tracking progress of vital conditions in Allentown have provided a method to bridge clinical and community health data and track signs of shared stewardship in action.
It takes humility to transform thinking and action.
Tanya Palmer, chief program officer at Children’s Services Council (CSC) of Palm Beach County, Florida, knew she didn’t want her organization to show up as the 64,000-pound gorilla. However, that view was entrenched among providers and community members. She understood the need to appreciate and recognize resident leadership as an integral part of building belonging and civic muscle. Palmer realized,
“…our role isn’t to fix the community, but rather to come in with scaffolding and support for what is already there...”
As one way of investing in scaffolding and demonstrating shared stewardship, CSC and six local funders created the Community Changemakers Fund, to support individuals, small businesses, and grassroots nonprofits committed to community change.
It takes capacity-building to create a movement.
Healthy Communities Delaware (HCD) is a diverse network encompassing 15 communities and 21 community-based organizations and coalition partners. To encourage shared stewardship to become the norm, HCD is investing in capacity-building to support partners across Delaware who are working on aligned and related efforts. Through liaisons, learning opportunities, and coordinated supports, HCD partners enhance their skills, knowledge, and abilities for resident-led change and community-driven revitalization, with belonging and civic muscle at the center of their approach. HCD’s investment has yielded a ripple effect. Between 2020 and 2023, HCD invested more than $3.5 million in community and individual stewards. Those partners went on to secure more than $15 million in additional funding, thanks to HCD’s capacity-building investments.
It takes belonging to scale for broader impact.
In the Fox Cities region of Wisconsin, many residents who weren’t thriving felt that they didn’t belong. A group of stewards committed to creating intergenerational well-being and a sense of belonging for all in their 19-municipality region created Imagine Fox Cities. They convened more than 80 dialogues with residents and conducted a 3,000-person community-wide survey on resident well-being. Together with diverse community-based organizations representing faith communities, government, philanthropies, schools, and businesses, they reimagined their North Star. With everyone’s input, Imagine Fox Cities developed four pillars for its vision of the future: 1) Kids get off to a great start in life; 2) An economy that works for all; 3) Thriving natural and cultural places that bring people together; and 4) Everyone feels like they belong — the center of the circle that begins the ripple of change.