The only way to address the most significant health-related challenges is to empower community voices.
FHLI’s Vice President of Community Voice and Advocacy and the Director of Community Voice work to lead the organization’s efforts to support rural communities and historically marginalized populations. Our Community Voice pillar works in rural counties and underserved, marginalized communities to help identify key leaders and trusted messengers, connecting them with local, regional, state, and national partners.
Community Voice works through FHLI’s North Carolina Rural Health Leadership Alliance and the Rural Coalition Fighting COVID-19 to provider tools to assist in building capacity in local communities across our state.
North Carolina Rural Health Leadership Alliance
NCRHLA Convenes rural health leaders to foster collaborative solutions to the most pressing issues their communities face.
Our organization relies on a broad set of member/partners. They are the fuel that drives our mission and without them NCRHLA cannot function. While members can be organizations or individuals, rural or urban, North Carolinian or otherwise, they are all committed to vibrant rural places with equal access to health and health care.
Rural Coalition Fighting COVID-19
The Rural Coalition Fighting COVID-19 examines existing data on the ongoing pandemic and response efforts to provide input on gaps in rural health engagement, identifying strategies to bridge those gaps.
The Rural Coalition Fighting COVID-19 works to examine existing data and response efforts to provide input on gaps in rural health engagement, identifying strategies to bridge those gaps.
Rooted in community-driven action and collaboration, the Foundation for Health Leadership & Innovation (FHLI) positions itself to play an instrumental role in advancing systems-level change to improve the overall health and well-being of all North Carolinians. At FHLI, we aim to be the leading voice creating solutions to address complex health challenges facing rural communities and historically marginalized populations.
FHLI strives to accomplish these goals by cultivating a culture of innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking, amplifying the voices of the communities we serve. We do this by recognizing that no idea is too small and by catalyzing diverse stakeholders in meaningful, collaborative engagement.
We acknowledge that:
- Communities must drive the solutions and deserve to have their voices elevated.
- A mature understanding of equity is imperative, and the only way to address the most deeply rooted community challenges is by empowering all stakeholders — traditional and non-traditional — to participate.
- The challenges rural communities and marginalized populations face are both generational and systemic. They can’t be solved with one-time programming, but instead through sustainable, systems-level change. This calls for new approaches that lean on innovation, partnerships, and technology.
- The health system is at an inflection point. The disparities are stark, and the importance of equity in pursuit of whole-person health is critical.