Healthy People 2025

Social Determinants of Health: More than access to medical care alone, our health is shaped by the conditions and environments in which we live, work, learn, and play. It's shaped by the neighborhoods we live in, the quality of the jobs and educational opportunities we have access to, the strength of our social networks and supports, and so much more. Together, these factors are known as the social determinants of health - and they can be responsible for up to 80% of our health outcomes down the road.

Multi-Sector Collaborations: A multi-sector collaboration is a partnership made up of government; non-profit, private, and public organizations; community groups; and/or individual community members working together to solve problems that affect the whole community. At least two different sectors must be represented in each collaboration. So, if you're a nonprofit, we ask that you reach outside the nonprofit sector and partner with the government, business community, faith community, or neighborhood-level organizations, etc. Basically, no one can change systems in isolation. We need partners to do this work, both in our sector and beyond.

Systems Change: Social Innovation Generation defines systems change as “shifting the conditions that are holding the problem in place.” Have you ever bumped up against a persistent problem in your work or life and thought, hmm… things would be better if we had this policy in place… or if people valued XYZ differently… or if these people had a greater voice in the process. Each of those ideas could be considered examples of potential interventions that could help change systems - and that's what this funding opportunity is about. Systems change involves identifying a need or problem, figuring out why it exists, and working to change that.