SCENARIO:

The Blueville Health Foundation (BHF) has recently been created to fund health initiatives in the Blueville Area. The BHF is run by a 5-member Executive Committee. The Executive Committee of the Board has been charged to set priorities for funding health projects. Unfortunately, the members of the Executive Committee have struggled with how to identify community health issues that need funding, how to engage the community in this process, or even how best to interact among themselves to meet their Foundation responsibilities.

To help the process along, the newly hired Executive Director of BHF commissioned a ‘community health needs assessment’ to help determine priorities. Based on this assessment and discussions with Executive Committee members, the Executive Director has put together a proposal to help move along the process so that quick decisions can be made. This meeting of the Executive Committee has been arranged to discuss the proposal and to make final decisions on the first round of funding (that will cover the first two to three years of the Foundation's existence).

Additionally, the committee members will need to decide on an approach to community participation for future Foundation grant allocation priority setting and decision-making.

TEACHING MATERIALS:

For all parties: