HAN supports health systems in implementing the anchor mission pillars by:
- raising the bar for anchor mission strategies through defining best-in-class commitments and leveraging sector recognition
- accelerating the adoption of anchor strategies internally, in partnership with other anchors, and in authentic collaboration with community
- fostering high-impact industry collaboration to scale impact of the anchor mission approach
HAN provides strategic support, curates deep dive peer conversations and facilitates initiative workgroups for members as they develop, launch, grow, and institutionalize anchor mission strategies at their institutions.
Anchor Mission Pillars
Impact Workforce strategies have a comprehensive impact by connecting residents of economically disadvantaged neighborhoods to quality jobs to career pathways. Intentional, “outside-in hiring pipelines” prepare and provide specific entry points for individuals experiencing barriers to employment for high-demand jobs at the institution through training and skills development. “Inside-up career pathways” and workforce development programs connect these new hires and other incumbent employees to opportunities for training, education, and career advancement. These strategies are complemented by policies that facilitate equitable advancement and provide benefits that help lower-wage employees achieve the financial security needed to maintain good health and live fuller lives. Signatories of HAN’s Impact Workforce commitment aim to align hiring and workforce power with clinical and community efforts to provide opportunities for individuals who may have faced barriers to employment due to myriad factors.
Impact Purchasing involves prioritizing diverse, sustainable, local, and/or high-impact (e.g., worker cooperatives, social enterprises) spend to stabilize local economies and build community wealth. Strategies center around creating connections and building capacity. “Connection strategies” focus on how health systems can intentionally link existing local, diverse, sustainable businesses that employ residents from underserved neighborhoods to contracting opportunities. “Capacity strategies” aim to strengthen the local business community’s ability to meet health system supply chain needs—by helping scale existing diverse businesses and developing new businesses that can create wealth building opportunities in underserved neighborhoods. The HAN Impact Purchasing commitment aims to establish a framework for health systems to help build community wealth and health by prioritizing and incentivizing the health systems’ organizational spend with diverse, local, and sustainable vendors.
Place-based Investing (PBI) is an impact investment approach that targets positive social and environmental impacts in specific communities and geographies of need while achieving a modest financial return or at least preserving the principal of that investment. HAN members with PBI strategies are helping to fill financing gaps in the marketplace by adding affordable and flexible capital for community projects that address upstream determinants of health. Signatories of HAN’s Place-base Investing commitment pledge to allocate at least 1% or $50 million (whichever is less) of long-term reserves or unrestricted investment fund or pool towards place-based investments for deployment within 5 years.
Policy advocacy on upstream determinants of health involves recognizing that health system efforts can only go so far, and that substantial improvements in economic equity will only be possible through changes in governmental funding priorities and policies, HAN member systems are utilizing their institutions’ influential standing and government relations resources to positively impact government funding and policy choices on upstream determinants of health.
Leveraging Anchor Philanthropy involves the strategic acquisition and allocation of philanthropic funds by an anchor institution to enhance the viability and impact of anchor mission strategies, and to strengthen the local economic ecosystem to better address the root causes of poor health. HAN health systems look to effectively leverage flexible, discretionary, and philanthropic resources to support anchor mission initiatives.
Skills-Based Volunteering centers on health systems deploying the talent and passion of their employees and build and enhance the capacity of community-based organizations that have fewer resources at the same time. By more intentionally leveraging the diverse technical and operational skills of staff, health systems can allow those staff to deploy their professional skills in service of partnering more closely with communities to address social and economic conditions that contribute to poor health outcomes for local residents.
Creating Sector-Level Change & Partnering with Community
Collaborating with Community Stakeholders aims for community engagement that is aligned with anchor strategy leads and cross-institutional anchor mission teams to allow for more effective design, implementation, and evaluation of anchor strategies— in collaboration with community stakeholders, and which embodies a commitment to racial and economic equity both in process and outcome.
Data collection for anchor strategy indicators. The purpose is to build a compelling evidence base for anchor mission strategies. To that end, HAN members have worked together to build the framework for anchor metrics that create an understanding of program-level activities (e.g., local hiring) within health systems. HAN has developed and launched an internal dashboard platform for member systems to track collective and individual progress over time.
Anchor Collaboratives
Anchor Collaboratives can take many forms, but generally consist of a network of place-based anchor institutions, municipal authorities, and/or community organizations that join together to develop, advance, and support shared goals and initiatives to move forward equitable and inclusive economic development strategies. HAN coordinates an Anchor Collaborative Learning Cohort composed of HAN health system members and their local anchor collaborative to help accelerate their strategies through strategic support and deployment of HAN resources—and capture knowledge and lessons learned to inform the broader HAN network about how healthcare institutions can effectively engage in place-based partnerships.
The Connection between Anchor Mission, Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG), Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and Community Engagement
The anchor mission can and should be a core component of any robust DEI, ESG and community engagement plan and will effectively catalyze positive societal impact. Though DEI, ESG, and anchor mission are not interchangeable, there are many areas where various elements included within these frameworks overlap and support each other.
The anchor mission, DEI and ESG call on health system leaders to be forward thinking, to marshal their resources for a future that’s going to look very different from the past, and to use all of the levers at their disposal—and that they have operational control over—so that their institutions can remain competitive and on mission.