Dear AITF Members:

This year has been challenging on many levels.  It has encouraged us to adapt and innovate in AITF.  Over the last few months, while we did not hold a full annual conference, we were able to provide various platforms for learning exchange among members, highlight how anchor institutions have been engaging with their communities in the current context, and developing our policy strategy to advance the work of our field going forward.

In early November, all of our active subgroups – Higher Education Presidents, Economic Development Executives, Health Professionals, and Education – all held an online summit.   Our Advisory Council and Anchor Fellows were also able to meet virtually.  We established a number of tools for ongoing exchange within subgroups and throughout AITF through Microsoft Teams.

As you know, showcasing specific examples of how anchor institutions are engaging in their communities has been fundamental to AITF’s work.  This has been a hallmark of our Annual Conferences and our publications, including The Journal on Anchor Institutions and Communities.  This year, given the unique circumstances that have faced our neighborhoods, cities, and regions, we have been gathering specific examples of how anchor institutions have been responding to the pandemic, and releasing different editions capturing this multifaceted range of initiatives.  We are pleased to report that our Third Edition of these examples is now available: https://www.margainc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Edition-3-AITF-COVID-response.pdf

One other important way in which we have exhibited examples of anchors’ efforts during these extraordinary times was through our recent webinar held December 3: Anchor Institutions, Racial Justice, and Equity in the Era of COVID 19 and Black Lives Matter.  Thanks to those of you who were able to view this event.  If you were not able to join the webinar, here is the recording:  https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/5059735219119105038.

This webinar provided an opportunity to hear from anchor institution leaders in different fields about their recent activities designed to help their communities navigate the public health, economic, educational, and racially equitable matters in their localities.  Thanks to our speakers who shared examples on their work: Nancy Cantor, Chancellor, Rutgers University-Newark, and AITF Advisory Council Co-Chair; David Perlstein, President/CEO SBH Health System, and AITF Advisory Council Co-chair; Brenda Battle, Vice President for Care Delivery Innovation and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, University of Chicago Medicine, and AITF Advisory Council Member; Sheryl Davis, Executive Director, San Francisco Human Rights Commission, and AITF Advisory Council Member; and Tony Mestres, President & CEO, the Seattle Foundation.  Founding Director of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania and AITF Founding Chair, Ira Harkavy, welcomed us to the event.  Of course, AITF would not exist without Ira.  

Finally, we knew we had to focus on policy this year.   As we saw the pandemic devastating communities, we knew that anchor institutions would be called into action.  Understanding the long-term impacts on local communities, we know that anchor institutions will be expected to do even more.  In fact, it is hard to imagine communities rebuilding and transforming in the years to come without the active participation of anchor institutions.  We think it is essential that policy and the role of anchor institutions in helping to craft equitable realities at the local level in the years to come are aligned.  We are pleased to present our policy brief, Pursuing Just and Equitable Communities in Light of COVID-19: An Action Agenda for Creating a New Normal https://www.margainc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AITF-Policy-Brief-Fall-2020.pdf.  

Two important recommendations are articulated in the brief – a central fund to support the engagement of anchor institutions in collaborative democratic efforts to bring about solutions in the years to come, and a National Work Initiative focusing on the role of anchor institutions in supporting, developing, and training the new types of work that will be required to reimagine and rebuild communities. Consistent with AITF’s evolving thinking, our policy strategy is emphasizing the importance of prioritizing racial equity and focusing on community-centric anchor institutions, which, by design, serve historically underrepresented and low-income communities. This brief is only the beginning of a longer-range effort to engage policy makers in dialogue about collaborative pursuits at all levels of government.

We are all likely hoping for brighter prospects in 2021.  For AITF, in the midst of adversity, we took the opportunity to lay the foundation for a robust strategy to enhance and expand our role as a resource to democratic anchor institution/community partnerships.  May you and yours have an enjoyable holiday season considering the circumstances around us.  Best wishes for the New Year.

Warm Regards,

David


*****************************************
Here are some relevant articles and updates from the field. 
This toolkit, developed by the Center for Community Investment at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in collaboration with the Catholic Health Association, is designed to help health care organizations look at their resources in a different light, expand their efforts to support their communities, and maximize their impact on community health by harnessing the power of their investment capital. In addition, it delves into a number of key topics: distinguishing between financial contributions and investment strategies, understanding the value of investment strategies for addressing the social determinants of health, and mobilizing investment capital to improve community health.
The Anchor Institutions Task Force (AITF) has been capturing and highlighting the engagement of anchor institutions in the current context of the pandemic, serving as a forum for ongoing learning exchange among representatives of anchor institutions, and developing a policy strategy to increase support for the vital role that anchor institutions play in transforming communities. The webinar held on December 3 addressed AITF’s work during this extraordinary year and strategic steps to come and highlight how anchor institutions have been meeting pressing needs in their communities during 2020. Anchor institution leaders shared their current views and experience in addressing health issues, racial justice and equity in their local communities. Click this link to view the recording.

Although community engagement has been on the agenda of universities in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, it has not been taken up by many universities in the European Union, with few addressing it in a systematic way. To deal with this issue, there are moves afoot such as a project called TEFCE –Towards a European Framework for Community Engagement of Higher Education.
Boston’s museums and performing arts institutions have sought for years to broaden their appeal — presenting works by minority artists, holding community discussions, and special events. Nevertheless, in a city where more than half the population is non-white, the percentage of minorities serving on cultural boards of trustees — whose members often set an institution’s agenda — remains markedly out of step with the communities they seek to serve.

Michellene Davis of RWJBarnabas Health and Hanaa Hamdi of New Jersey Community Capital talk about the Family Village, a project the two organizations have been working on to acquire a swath of abandoned or foreclosed homes, and renovate them to healthy homes standards that are affordable for local families. They also talk about tackling systemic racism in health care, how to slowly build support in risk-averse health care systems (and on nonprofit boards), and the messy middle of partnerships.

Efforts to promote equitable development have been reinforced in Cleveland with a new kind of anchor: the Cleveland Foundation, which is the nation’s first community foundation and has over $2.5 billion in assets. After over 100 years operating in downtown Cleveland, the Foundation’s headquarters will move to the Health-Tech Corridor in 2022, physically positioning itself between downtown and University Circle. This relocation will strengthen the Foundation’s efforts to catalyze growth within the district and spur equitable neighborhood development, alongside the activities led by the Corridor’s more traditional anchors and companies.

The new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Exploring Hospital Investments in Community Development, provides the first in-depth, national analysis of nonprofit hospitals’ reported spending on community building activities, examining how this spending varies by geography and hospital characteristics. The report also includes a qualitative review of related activities undertaken by hospitals in Third District states (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey), highlighting areas of potential alignment with the community development field.

Community colleges play a crucial role in American higher education. These colleges also disproportionately serve low-income students and students of color, they are engines of opportunity supporting social mobility and the health of the U.S. economy. Despite their vital role, community colleges receive $8,800 less in education revenue per student enrolled than four-year institutions, according to a new analysis from the Center for American Progress. That translates into a total gap of $78 billion between the two sectors.
Academic Journal Articles:
Summary: University-assisted community schools is an approach that from its very beginnings in the late 1980s has been developed and implemented to produce significant change on campus, in the community and its schools, and in the wider society. The articles in this issue of Universities and Community Schools are a powerful indicator that university-assisted community schools across the United States have been doing just that. As impressive as the progress is and has been, it is obvious from recent events that university-assisted community schools need to do more, much more. University-assisted community schools must increasingly function as democratic, anti-racist, justice- and equity-seeking institutions.  

Universities need institutional transformation (from the outside in) to transcend boundaries within the academy and between the academy and the world, with an eye toward the collective work to advance equity and impact and cement the identity of institutions—each in their own way—as indispensable partners in improving the human condition. The author suggests that there are four inextricably intertwined aspects to the necessary transformation, all aimed at the public good. First, universities need to diversify the student body and faculty (building a critical mass of representation). Second, universities need to recognize and reward publicly engaged scholarship. Third, universities need to cultivate genuinely reciprocal, sustained relationships between universities and our communities (as stable, committed anchors of equitable growth and opportunity). Fourth, universities need to learn to overcome their competitive instincts and collaborate across an ecosystem of institutions, organizations, and sectors (all committed to a movement of change).

Reference: Cantor, N. (2020). Transforming the Academy: The Urgency of Recommitting Higher Education to the Public Good. Liberal Education, 106, n1/2.

The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has accelerated epidemiologic data collection and reporting to a scale that has never before been achieved. Years of disinvestment in U.S. public health infrastructure have resulted in the immediate need for new mechanisms to support micro-epidemiologic efforts. Universities and community pharmacies, both trusted institutions with established infrastructure, are uniquely positioned to facilitate micro-epidemiologic efforts by creating partnerships.

Reference: Venditto, V. J., Hudspeth, B., Freeman, P. R., Kebodeaux, C., & Guy, R. K. (2020). University–pharmacy partnerships for COVID-19. Science, 369(6510), 1441-1441

Abstract: This paper aims to identify how public libraries used Twitter in the initial months after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Content analysis was performed on a dataset of 9,450 tweets published by 38 public libraries in New York City between December 2019 and April 2020. The findings suggest that during the pandemic, NYC public libraries mostly continued to conduct business as usual and, in doing so, may have brought a valuable feeling of normalcy to the communities they serve during those problematic and strained days.

Reference: Alajmi, B. M., & Albudaiwi, D. (2020). Response to COVID-19 Pandemic: Where Do Public Libraries Stand?. Public Library Quarterly, 1-17. DOI: 10.1080/01616846.2020.1827618