Mission & Approach

Mission

The SAN FRANCISCO HEALTH IMPROVEMENT PARTNERSHIP (SFHIP) is a collaborative body who mission is to improve community health and wellness in San Francisco through collective impact. The Steering Committee is cross-sector collaboration composed of:

  • Mission-driven ANCHOR INSTITUTIONS committed to leveraging their economic power to improve community health and well-being.
  • HEALTH EQUITY COALITIONS grounded in the lived experience and resilience of communities experiencing health inequities.
  • FUNDERS dedicated to improving community health.
  • EDUCATIONAL, FAITH-BASED, and SERVICE provider networks and institutions making a difference in the everyday lives of residents

Our Vision is: Healthy people, healthy families, healthy communities: living, learning, playing, earning in San Francisco.

  1. To facilitate ALIGNMENT of San Francisco’s priorities, resources, and actions to improve health and well-being.
  2. To ensure that HEALTH EQUITY is addressed throughout program planning and service delivery.
  3. To promote COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS that support health and well-being.

Approach

FRAMEWORK – COLLECTIVE IMPACT

In order to accomplish our goals, SFHIP uses a COLLECTIVE IMPACT model to bring people together to achieve health equity and create social change. Collective impact is the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem.1

There are five conditions that must be met to achieve successful alignment and lead to powerful results:

  1. COMMON AGENDA – That means coming together to collectively define the problem and create a shared vision for solve it
  2. SHARED MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS – That means agreeing to track progress (collection of data and measuring results) in the same way, which allows for continuous improvement
  3. MUTUALLY REINFORCING ACTIVITIES – That means coordinating collective efforts and joint plan of actions to maximize the end result
  4. CONTINUOUS COMMUNICATION – That means building trust & relationships among all participants and having consistent & open communication
  5. BACKBONE SUPPORT ORGANIZATION – That means having a team with the resources and skills to convene and coordinate participating organizations

STRATEGIC APPROACH TO ACTION

SFHIP carries out its activities through four different approaches:

  1. POLICY – advocating for policies that benefit the health of our communities
  2. PARTNERSHIP – collaborating with organizations and initiatives that aim to address health equity in San Francisco
  3. LINKAGES & NETWORKING – establishing networks to build upon existing resources and expand scope of influence
  4. INITIATIVES – developing programs or actions that address the health inequities across vulnerable populations in San Francisco