Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

"I have an inherent belief that the more we take care of the people in our community, the better our economy and our society will be."

— Liz Baxter, North Sound Accountable Community of Health, Thriving Together

— Michael McAfee, Policylink

In 2020, our efforts to thrive have grown more difficult: at whiplash speed, we are now struggling and suffering through COVID-19 and spiraling crises. Generations before us have endured sweeping adversity and sometimes found the strength to make great strides toward well-being and justice. Once again, America’s resilience and humanity are being tested.

The work at hand is to renew our legacies for living together by stemming the tide of mounting affliction, preparing for future crises, and expanding opportunities for all people and places to thrive.

America’s movement for well-being and justice can never be codified in a single playbook. Yet, it can spring forward with great force and direction if we pursue our priorities, together, to make change happen where it counts.

Read the full introduction to Thriving Together here.

Visit thriving.us to download sections of the report:

Legacy Moment frames the report and its context, introduces the vital conditions, and offers a set of guiding principles.

Changing Course presents 11 summaries focused on the vital conditions, followed by separate summaries that examine place, faith, investment, and measurement.

Paths to Renewal builds on the previous sections by presenting actionable ideas for national renewal.

Thriving Movement concludes the main narrative by looking at where we go from here.

Deep Dives are paper-length explanations of ideas touched on in the Changing Course summaries.

Stewardship is a core concept in Thriving Together. We cannot unlock our full potential for well-being with token gestures. It takes serious change—in ourselves, our relationships, our institutions, and the systems that we create together.

This report profiles characteristics of people who are not only impressive stewards, but also are helping to grow the entire field of system stewardship for well-being. It describes what prompts them to set new standards for what system changers can do while also inspiring many other people and organizations to join them in this work.

The WE WIN Racial Justice Community provides space for communities, organizations, and coalitions to learn from one another. Together, we reflect and gather insight for addressing racism in workplaces and throughout life. Learn more and register here.

The rise in awareness of how social determinants drive health outcomes, advanced by the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, the All-In, the Practical Playbook, 100 Million Healthier Lives, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Culture of Health initiative, and many others, have moved communities to invest in multisector collaboration to address social needs and the social determinants of health.

The WIN measures were selected using five cycles of a modified Delphi Process. Through this process, more than 100 groups and local communities worked together to put hundreds of measures into a living library of measures that could be used across sectors.

From a wave of woes our world will emerge stronger.

We’ll observe how the burdens braved by humankind

Are also the moments that make us humans kind;

Let every dawn find us courageous, brought closer;

Heeding the light before the fight is over.

When this ends, we’ll smile sweetly, finally seeing

In testing times, we became the best of beings.

―Amanda Gorman, US Youth Poet Laureate, 2020

“The Miracle of Morning”

Photo by Jesse Gardner on Unsplash

Panelists joined the All-America City Awards Event to discuss the 7 vital conditions of community well-being: Thriving Natural World, Basic Needs, Humane Housing, Meaningful Work and Wealth, Lifelong Learning, Reliable Transportation, and Belonging and Civic Muscle.

On August 19th, 2020 the National Civic League announced the winners of the 2020 All-America City Award (AAC). Each community demonstrated civic engagement practices that are inspirational, inclusive and promising in their ability to unite members of the community to collectively and collaboratively help solve our country’s most pressing and complex issues. This year’s winners focused specifically on enhancing health and well-being through civic engagement.

The National Civic League is proud to announce the winner of this year’s Health Equity Award: Dr. Tsu-Yin Wu, director of the Eastern Michigan University Center for Health Disparities Innovation and Studies (CHDIS). The Health Equity Award is presented each year by the National Civic League in conjunction with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to recognize individuals who are leveraging civic engagement to improve health outcomes for those most impacted by health disparities.