Roque Barros, Executive Director, Imperial Valley Wellness Foundation
Karen Winston, Communications Director, Alliance Healthcare Foundation
To understand health and wellness in rural America, it has been suggested that you need to find a trusted intermediary inside the region that is walking hand-in-hand with the community. Aspen Institute’s Community Strategies Group describes this type of intermediary as a Rural Development Hub (RDH).
Rural Development Hubs focus on advancing an asset-based, wealth-building approach to rural community engagement and economic development. This inherently includes increasing the health and wellness of the community and its residents; increasing local ownership of all types of assets from cultural, social, financial to political, attracting external resources and funding; and it always includes low-income, under-resourced people and places. Hubs seek to transform regions by treating root causes of multigenerational poverty and disease by shifting the balance of power and developing a stronger power base in the community and with those most impacted by the issues at hand.
With a goal toward advancing health and wellness and improving health equity by addressing disparities, the Imperial Valley Wellness Foundation (IVWF) has strategically become an RDH in Imperial County, California.
In this article, IVWF’s specific approach to community building and empowerment is offered as a framework for philanthropy on how to support the health and capacity of rural regions to drive the change they want to see in their communities.
Three Communities. One Collective Voice. A Seat at the Table.
IVWF operates as both grantmaker and RDH in Imperial County. With the tagline Making the Imperial Valley a Better Place to Live for All, its overall mission is to improve prosperity and well-being for everyone in the region. This role gets played out through community building, convening, and connecting disadvantaged communities with nonprofit organizations, business, government, and other funders.
In 2020, IVWF developed a Learning Partnership Program that was inaugurated with a three-hour Learning Exchange that gathered local nonprofits, community groups, and government stakeholders to share and learn about each other’s work. In a roundtable discussion, 25 participants explored connections and opportunities related to:
- Identifying issues and challenges facing those who have historically been excluded from decisionmaking and planning tables,
- Identifying priorities for communities and the county,
- Exploring potential community hubs within the region that could continue to meet for longer term vision work, and
- Reimagining the future for their communities.
Multiple opportunities to further connect and partner came from this inaugural convening. One particular result was a Vision Learning Exchange for the small unincorporated towns remotely situated, far north of the county center. The purpose behind this new convening was to explore if three neighboring towns could improve the conditions of their separate communities by uniting as one region of the county.
A Vision Learning Exchange, which is both the name and type of convening, gathers nonprofits, community groups and institutions to share and learn about each other’s work. Participants identify issues and challenges their communities are facing, especially for those who have historically been excluded. They then identify mutual priorities for continued discussion. Ultimately, the gathering is meant to inspire the group to reimagine the future of their communities and build collaborative pathways to achieving the long-term vision.
At this particular Vision Learning Exchange, members from the towns shared their issues and concerns. They discovered that they shared similar challenges, including the lack of external resources for improved infrastructure and emergency safety plans.
Organizing themselves as an informal collaborative, the towns of Niland, Bombay Beach, and Calipatria forged a consolidated plan to work together to raise visibility of their communities and their needs in the county. These residents united to seek opportunities to meet with county officials and advocate for resources.
How it Works
Key to this approach is that those most impacted by the issues at hand become the drivers of the decisions that affect their daily lives. To do so, the most vulnerable communities and populations must be made visible to and heard by those who typically hold the decisionmaking power. The RDH elevates civic engagement to support community members to engage, amplify their voices, and create opportunities to participate in planning to make the changes they want to see. The community members collaborate as community building hubs and create the space and opportunity for other community members to gather and mobilize around the identified priorities, and then partner with local nonprofits that can boost their efforts. These hubs become their own power base as they meet with institutions and government representatives offering solutions on how to improve economic living conditions.
The RDH approach is a true community-driven collaboration that brings together residents from marginalized communities, those working in the established organizations and institutions in the region, and government stakeholders who typically hold access to resources. It is neither a “top down” or “bottom up” approach, but rather a space where each participant is valued for their perspectives and critical to achieving positive and sustainable outcomes. In this collaboration, the RDH serves as a convener and bridge builder with the experience and expertise to ensure progress is made and all voices are heard and respected.
Capacity building is a critical component of the RDH work, recognizing that everyone starts at different places. The RDH’s role is to walk alongside a community as the community builds its capacity and collective voice to participate as an equal at the table with institutions, nonprofits, and government. By building needed skills, creating capacity, and drawing in resources, nonprofits and other established institutions can work in partnership with community members to fuel needed change and become the decision makers ensuring that prosperity and well-being is attainable by all.
Case Example
The NorthEnd Alliance 111 (NEA) formed in 2022 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity, with the guidance of Imperial Valley Wellness Foundation, acting as a Rural Development Hub. The NEA’s mission is to improve the quality of life in the local communities of Calipatria, Niland, and Bombay Beach by addressing the needs and challenges these underserved and disinvested communities face.
These three small rural towns are among the poorest and most challenged in Imperial County and statewide with a median family income of $20,000 and high rates of asthma and diabetes. The purpose behind the NEA is to better advocate for the needs and concerns of their towns by creating a power base in the region.
Upon establishing the NEA, the organization was approached by large agencies and corporations for community input and grant resources. As a result, the NEA found themselves in uncharted territory without the experience or infrastructure to meet the demand. IVWF provided capacity and support by helping identify strategic directions to discern between multiple opportunities, assisting in writing and submitting grant applications, and assisting in navigating the complexities of stewarding project funds.
IVWF hosted a local Vision Learning Exchange in 2023 to further strengthen the voice and visibility of those living in this region. To help local leaders find ways to work together for a common vision for their region, the Learning Exchange brought together the NEA and other organizations from the three towns. Since participating in the Vision Learning Exchange, the NEA has been able to coordinate with the other organizations and work together as a united voice advocating for the three communities. These organizations have been able to leverage this experience and engage with institutions and local government to access needed resources.
One such opportunity includes how NEA and IVWF partnered to secure funds to address this year’s devastating flood in Niland. Each partner led tasks and took responsibility for areas they were most aligned with to successfully distribute emergency relief funds to Niland residents. This was not a grantor-grantee relationship but an equity partnership that utilized each partner’s skills and capacity for bettering the community.
These types of opportunities result in community groups earning a “seat at the table” by articulating the needs of the community, offering solutions to meet those needs, and following through on efforts to address those needs or even mitigate the circumstances that have created the needs. In this way community groups are leading efforts based on their own agendas and priorities.
The NorthEnd Alliance 111 is continuing its journey of capacity building and expansion as it moves from an informal collaborative into a formalized nonprofit organization. The NEA and IVWF have developed into a balanced partnership. IVWF offers skills, resources and opportunities for further engagement and development, and NEA serves as a key partner to IVWF toward achieving the foundation’s mission of Making the Imperial Valley a Better Place to Live for All.
Summary
The NorthEnd Alliance’s story is an example of the type of transformational work that can happen with a Rural Development Hub. With coaching, support, and opportunities to learn and expand, community leaders from three small rural towns have found a collective voice and increased their visibility within the County. Through their hard work and commitment, they are creating new opportunities to support each other in transforming and improving the economic vitality of their respective towns.
The empowered visibility of these towns has been showing up in collective efforts to attract long overdue attention from media and agencies to their challenges:
- Two years ago, the Niland U.S. Post Office burned down and was promised to be rebuilt by the government. It still stands burned and unreplaced today. Without this post office, residents must travel eight miles to the next available post office. Recently, the residents staged a protest outside the burned building and attracted regional media attention to their hardships.
- The Imperial County Board of Supervisors recently approved $3 million for cleanup and repair of roads through these towns that were flooded and damaged by Tropical Storm Hilary in September 2023.
- Citizens Energy Corp. has recently donated $100,000 for flood damage relief from a recent 2024 storm for residents and affected organizations in Niland. These funds and the application process are being managed by Imperial Valley Wellness Foundation as the Regional Development Hub and the NEA is assisting in getting the word out to its residents.
It is not unusual that an outside corporation like Citizens Energy has stepped in with support. Imperial County is a national focal point for lithium manufacturing due to its vast availability along the Salton Sea which coincidentally is in immediate proximity to Niland, Calipatria, and Bombay Beach. Citizens Energy is an interested player in this new energy opportunity. As the emerging lithium industry develops, we can look for future signs of visibility and collective action from the NEA and residents to demand protection and safeguards for their safety and health as well as hopefully attract much needed economic and community development.
The towns that make up the NorthEnd Alliance, once overlooked and underinvested in, now have a strong voice and are organized for community-driven change. Through their relationship with IVWF and other developing county partnerships, they are identifying strategic directions and taking necessary tactical steps to achieve their goals. With each new effort, they are building confidence and developing community-based leaders to drive change and development in their rural region.
About the Imperial Valley Wellness Foundation and its partner Alliance Healthcare Foundation
Alliance Healthcare Foundation (AHF), based in San Diego County and IVWF, based in neighboring Imperial County, are forming an equitable partnership as a new community strategy to increase the quality of life for vulnerable populations and disinvested communities in Imperial County. An equitable partnership signals a transition away from the traditional grantor-grantee relationship to a true partnership based on trust, transparency and accountability that includes sharing information, talent, capital and other resources, in pursuit of the same goals. In the case of AHF and IVWF, AHF has agreed to make a capital transfer of wealth to IVWF which will ensure IVWF’s autonomy in power building and decision making as it moves its mission forward in the community.