Capacity to build healthy communities
Blue Shield Foundation of California
Spitfire worked with the Blue Shield Foundation of California, an organization focused on creating lasting and equitable solutions that advance health and well-being for all Californians, to build communication capacity for the foundation’s grantees.
With the Affordable Care Act (ACA) coming under attack in early 2017, grantees were working at the forefront of health policy and needed tools to help them advocate for their work. Spitfire provided capacity-building support for this important and timely work through two-day training and one-on-one communication support and technical assistance.
Our support included providing trainings on the Spitfire Smart Chart tool; assisting with strategic planning; providing messaging counsel; developing messaging, narrative and strategy for grantees; and reviewing communication materials for opportunities to refine and improve them.
Examples of our work include the following:
For CA Health+ Advocates, Spitfire created a messaging platform to advocate for continued support for Community Health Centers, which are often the only source of medical care and support for rural California communities.
For Faith in Action (formerly known as PICO National Network), Spitfire analyzed its fundraising approach and developed a set of best practices to guide future efforts.
For the California Black Women’s Health Project (CBWHP), we developed tailored messaging to motivate university and college students and women’s organizations to get involved with its work.
This tailored approach had the cumulative effect of strengthening the communication capacity of Blue Shield’s grantees, better equipping them to advance their programmatic goals, fight for federal health care funding and reach more Californians in need.