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About the Initiative

Leading with an equity frame, Reinvestment Fund is working with selected cross-sector collaborations from the four BHEC cities to build partnerships, support advocacy, and align resources, through targeted facilitation, convening, and other supports, in response to the challenges that communities currently face as they plan for an equitable recovery and advancement of community development priorities.

Through BHEC, city teams are able to leverage annual grant support of $100,000 for program duration (3 years) and predevelopment funds, data analytics products, flexible financing, and technical assistance support adapted to local needs.

Background

Building off the lessons of the Invest Health initiative

Starting in 2016, Reinvestment Fund launched the Invest Health initiative with support from RWJF. This initiative informed the development of the BHEC initiative. Prior to its design, Reinvestment Fund spent a year getting to know the New Jersey community development landscape, building partnerships with leading stakeholders in the field, and understanding the existing capacity and experience throughout the state. In the spring of 2020, multi-sector city teams applied and were selected through a competitive grant process to participate in the three-year program, which began in December 2020.

Program Objectives

The goals of the BHEC initiative

  • Identify shared priorities among cities’ cross-sector collaboratives for recovery with a focus on built environment challenges.
  • Deepen cities’ understanding of the relationship between the social determinants of health, equity, and community development.
  • Strengthen cross-sector partnerships and facilitate resident engagement.
  • Make sustained actions to improve the systems, such as policies, practices, resource flows, and incentives that facilitate investment in projects and programs that accelerate equitable recovery from health and economic crises, as well as facilitate state, local, philanthropic, and private resource alignment around community priorities.
  • Improve cities’ capacity to identify and leverage streams of capital and to finance investments that promote well-being and equity through built environment projects.