Michigan Health Endowment Fund
2023–Present
Michigan (statewide)
Overview
The Michigan Health Endowment Fund (Health Fund) engages with communities across Michigan to improve and address the underlying social determinants that influence health. The Health Fund recognizes that health leaders can also benefit from training on how to collaborate and make the most of their partnerships. The Health Fund is engaging Healthy Places by Design (HPbD) to offer Collaboration Lab to local leaders, in a rare opportunity for formal collaboration training.
Our Approach
Collaboration Lab guides participants through a 10-month course that includes interactive peer-exchanges to increase leadership skills in cross-sector collaboration. The curriculum is centered on the “3P Model,” which emphasizes the importance of People, Process, and Planning for successful collaboratives. HPbD curates content and resources for the Collaboration Lab sessions to meet the participants’ needs, diving deeply into topics such as inclusive community engagement, self-assessment, leadership skills, ingredients for successful collaboratives, and planning for equitable outcomes. Collaboration Lab helps participants develop a deeper self-awareness, facilitate dialogue, support system-wide collaborations, and create a culture of collective action.
Results & Impact
Two Collaboration Lab cohorts since 2023 have engaged 28 leaders from 23 organizations, including public health departments, community foundations, United Way agencies, advocacy groups, and nonprofits that are strengthening cross-sector partnerships to address issues such as human trafficking, healthy food access, youth mental health, and older-adult wellbeing.
- Esperanza Cantú, Senior Director, Community Information Exchange & Integration Services at the United Way for Southeastern Michigan described Collaboration Lab as a “fellowship” of like-minded change agents. As a result of her participation in the cohort, she changed the way her teams work together, making collaboration a shared goal as stewards of the resources that the United Way deploys in its community. The 3P Model helped frame their exploration in becoming a more collaborative intermediary with their non-profit, government and community partners.
- Kat Hutton, Program Director for MiGEN, described their own struggles with a partnership experiencing low enthusiasm and a lack of progress. Their experience in Collaboration Lab prompted the group to slow down and hold an “honest conversation” about why the collaborative no longer seemed aligned with the needs of LGBTQ+ elders. This step enabled key partners to reorient how they could better provide critical services through events that first prioritized bringing people together.
- Ally Hunter, Virtual Care Consultant for Henry Ford Health, works with the Southeast Michigan Coalition for Older Adults in a Virtual World to create a curriculum for medical residents providing virtual care for older adults. Ally and her partners applied principles and practical tips from a Collaboration Lab resource, “Engaging People with Lived/Living Experience.” Ally’s team incorporated older adults into the curriculum design for clinical care providers. To be inclusive, they held accessible meetings with older adults virtually, at various times, and with multiple options for providing input to accommodate different literacy levels. Applying this type of inclusive design thinking will ultimately improve the cultural capacity of providers as well as the care delivered to older adults.