Equity Community Organizing (ECO) Groups to Advance Health Equity in Aging in California

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The program, Equity Community Organizing (ECO) Groups to Advance Health Equity in Aging, will provide funding to organize community groups designed to reduce health inequities for older adults in California. The focus is on communities of color and communities where race and ethnicity intersect with other factors such as age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, language, and/or immigration status leading to inequities.

Awardees will:

• Create an ECO Group comprised of older adults from impacted communities as well as local stakeholders demonstrating diverse perspectives (health, healthcare, aging, disability, health equity, racial justice)
• Identify and prioritize the key drivers of the health inequities they experience
• Work together to design solutions that address these inequities

Themes and strategies include:

• Health from the first to final days
  • Recognize discrimination as an ideological root of health inequity and foreground identity and culture to deliver whole person care
  • Prioritize preventive and holistic care to sustain higher levels of wellness
  • Cultivate a pipeline of healthcare and care providers with a heart for the work who identify with the communities they serve
• Economic and environmental well-being
  • Invest in housing, transportation, and food security to mitigate long-term, compounding health challenges over time
  • Reimagine the social contract between employment, retirement, and benefits to equip older adults with economic security
  • Design accountability into health and social services systems to reduce fragmentation and distribute fair access to resources and levels of care
• Cultures of belonging and care
  • Return to social and communal forms of care to offset social isolation and the fragility of family caregiving
  • Honor elderhood as a source of connection across generations past, present, and future
  • Emphasize belonging as the criteria for where, how, and with whom people age in place

Eligible applicants must:

• Be a California-based organization or a fiscally sponsored project in the state, including nonprofit, for-profit, faith-based, and private sector organizations
• Board of directors, and staff should be reflective of the racial/ethnic diversity of the population served
• Have experience in community organizing and be prepared to provide 1-2 examples of what this looks like in the communities they serve
• Have a vision for how they will bring together intersecting movements, and how that can actively address a specific health inequity impacting older adults or how individuals age in their community

Award ceiling: $225,000
Project period: 18 months
Estimated number of awards: 3

A link to the application instructions is available on the program website.

Submit applications using the online form.