Today MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving announced the Bronx’s Health People as one of Yield Giving’s Open Call awardees working with people and in places experiencing the greatest need in the United States. Health People, which for decades has been combatting the scourge of chronic disease including diabetes and asthma disproportionately afflicting poor communities of color, received $2 million.
“We are profoundly grateful that Yield Giving has given us this huge grant which we will use to develop a Community Training Institute, enabling other community groups across the city to implement chronic disease self-care and preventive education that works because local residents, trained as peer educators, are engaging their own neighborhoods,” said Chris Norwood, Executive Director of Health People which began in 1990 combatting the impact of HIV/AIDS. “People in the Bronx who would not accept having the unhealthiest county in New York State have shown over and over that with backing and support, peer education enables communities to rebuild their own health—even routinely helping those with diabetes reverse their condition.”
“Now, with gratitude to Yield Giving, we can enable many more communities to combat chronic diseases, and they in turn will train their neighbors,” said Norwood. “As they build, they will see that the staggering levels of chronic illness now injuring low-income communities are completely unnecessary.”
“This grant will help us save thousands of lives, and billions of tax dollars, as residents in particular control and even reverse their diabetes and avoid costly and life-threatening complications including dialysis, lower-limb amputations, Alzheimer’s and other diabetes-linked diseases,” Norwood said.
In March 2023, Yield Giving launched an Open Call for community-led, community-focused organizations whose explicit purpose is to enable individuals and families to achieve substantive improvement in their well-being through foundational resources.
The Open Call received 6,353 applications and initially planned for 250 awards of $1 million each. In the Fall of 2023, organizations top-rated by their peers advanced to a second round of review by an external Evaluation Panel recruited for experience relevant to this cause, and underwent a final round of due diligence. In light of the incredible work of these organizations, as judged by their peers and external panelists, the donor team decided to expand the donor pool and the award amount.
“We are excited that our partnership with Yield Giving has resonated with so many organizations,” said Cecilia Conrad, CEO of Lever for Change. “In a world teeming with potential and talent, the Open Call has given us an opportunity to identify, uplift, and empower transformative organizations that often remain unseen.”
The centerpiece of Health People’s outreach has been peer-to-peer education, and the group plans to utilize the grant to work with community-based groups across the city to train residents in such programs as the Diabetes Self-Management Program (DSMP), the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) and the New York State Authorization for HIV peer training.
Health People will partner with groups such as One Brooklyn Health and Black Health (the National Black Leadership Coalition for Health) to expand their Training Institute which teaches community residents become peer educators and bring the evidence-based DSMP, a six-session program, to their neighbors. That program trains local people with type 2 diabetes to lower their blood sugar through diet and lifestyle change.
The program has been brought to thousands of residents of the Bronx and Brooklyn, including residents of public housing developments, homeless shelters, community centers and other places where the target audience gathers.
The result has been remarkable. Peer educators have reported losing upwards of 100 pounds, and lowering their A1C blood glucose levels to such a degree many no longer have to take the rigorous regiment of medications and other interventions they previously had had to do.
As an example, when Health People brought the program into city homeless shelters, there was a 45 percent drop in diabetes-related emergency room visits, saving taxpayers thousands of dollars for each time the residents did not have to go the ER.
It also prevents costly complications, including dialysis, which can cost upwards to $60,000 annually, and lower-limb amputations, which can cost upwards of $200,000, with the cost borne by taxpayers through Medicaid or the Medicare system.
Recent research also shows the link between high blood sugar levels and the on-set of dementia and Alzheimer’s, one more way that lowering blood sugar levels can preserve the health and economic viability of individuals.
“We know what works, and we have been battling for funds to bring this program to more and more residents,” Norwood said. “This grant from Yield Giving is literally a lifeline for thousands of residents now struggling with the effects of diabetes, which afflicts an estimated 1 million city residents, and 2 million statewide.
Even as the Yield giving grant will allow Health People and its sister community-based health organizations to maintain and expand peer-to-peer training, the groups will continue to pressure city and state government to grasp the opportunity to fund the peer education programs that can literally save thousands of lives and billions of tax dollars in poor communities of color.
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Health People – the Community Preventive Health Institute – was founded in 1990 by Chris Norwood, a groundbreaking journalist who first documented the disparate impact of HIV/AIDS on women. First focusing on the HIV/AIDS epidemic disproportionately impacting poor neighborhoods such as the South Bronx, she broadened Health People’s focus to include chronic diseases such as diabetes. As a community health agency based in the South Bronx, Health People uses groundbreaking peer-to-peer education, innovative program curricula, instructive workshops, and referral relationships with other service and health care providers to empower program participants to lead healthier, safer and more productive lives.
Yield Giving: Established by MacKenzie Scott to share a financial fortune through the efforts of countless people, Yield Giving is named after a belief in adding value by giving up control. To date, Yield’s network of staff and advisors has yielded over $16.5 billion to more than 1,900 non-profit teams to use as they see fit for the benefit of others. To learn more visit www.yieldgiving.com
Lever for Change: Lever for Change connects donors with bold solutions to the world’s biggest problems – including issues like racial inequality, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity, and climate change. Using an inclusive, equitable model and due diligence process, Lever for Change creates customized challenges and other tailored funding opportunities. Top-ranked teams and challenge finalists become members of the Bold Solutions Network – a growing global network that helps secure additional funding, amplify members’ impact and accelerate social change. Founded in 2019 as a non-profit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Lever for Change has influenced over $1.7 billion in grants to date and provided support to more than 145 organizations. To learn more, visit www.leverforchange.org
