2019
Embracing a culture of learning is an essential practice for change makers and for our team.
We believe our impact depends upon our willingness to check our internal assumptions, biases, and patterns, and to stay curious and open to new perspectives. In 2019, we leaned into our growing edge, building on strategic changes we made in 2018.
Throughout this report, you’ll see examples of how we have advanced equity, accelerated action, and enhanced collaboration while supporting diverse projects—all of which reflect the trusted relationships we’ve built over time.
View the full annual report to explore project highlights from the year.
2018
Our team put everything on the table.
Internally, we re-examined our mission, vision, name, and goals and distilled that thinking into a new strategic framework. During these conversations, we also recognized gaps in our capacity to accelerate equity, which lead to an internal assessment of our organization’s underlying factors of bias, privilege, and power. We also renamed and rebranded our organization. Our new name, Healthy Places by Design, emphasizes our long-held belief that place impacts health more than our genes or the healthcare system.
View the full annual report to explore project highlights from the year.
2017
Your strategic partner in community-led health.
Throughout 2017, national conversations about the Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and gun control movements clearly conveyed that our collective approach to creating healthy communities must make a significant shift—that the status quo is not enough. Thankfully, the common definition of health is no longer merely the absence of disease. Foundations, public health experts, and community leaders are lifting the importance of factors like education, income, transportation, housing, and resident empowerment as critical to health.
To support this deeper approach to community-led change, in 2017 Active Living By Design (now Healthy Places by Design) re-examined our vision, mission, and values, and developed a strategic framework. We also supported local leaders as they improved conditions related to housing, safety, healthcare, and other systems.
View the full annual report to continue reading the letter from our Executive Director and highlights from the year.
2016
Neighborhoods, cities, and counties across the nation are changing shape. Local leaders are gaining visibility and voice as they unify efforts for improved community health and well-being. We are honored to have been an ally along their journey in 2016, and we have been inspired by the field’s expanding definition of health. We, too, have broadened our focus. In addition to assisting local leaders with healthy eating and active living strategies, our work in 2016 addressed other health-enhancing approaches. These included improving housing conditions, increasing community safety, and supporting restorative justice.
View the full annual report to continue reading the letter from our Executive Director and highlights from the year.
2015
Throughout 2015, Active Living By Design (now Healthy Places by Design) continued to diversify our projects in exciting ways as strategic thought partners to funders, community leaders, and mission partners. We are also proud that our work always includes opportunities for mutual learning. Some of the key ways we provided leadership in the field included leading learning networks, supporting collaborative strategic planning, and advising national initiatives, all with a goal to deepen capacity and advance the healthy community movement.
View the full annual report to continue reading the letter from our Executive Director and highlights from the year.
2014
When Active Living By Design (now Healthy Places by Design) started 13 years ago as a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we focused on increasing routine physical activity by improving the environments in which people live, travel, work, and play. Our organization was at the forefront of the “active living movement,” a new paradigm that challenged the premise that health is primarily a matter of individual choice. This movement helped shift the conversation from its focus on education and behavior change to the impact of policies and environments (both social and physical) on the choices people have to be physically active.
View the full annual report to continue reading the letter from our Executive Director and highlights from the year.