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2007 was a year of continuing commitments, extensive planning and considerable change. With enthusiastic leadership by the full Board of Trustees, we took a step back from the well defined, steady progression of Trust grantmaking over the past 23 years, and established a new vision, to achieve access to health for all Coloradans by 2018. Why this commitment, why now? The answer is twofold – need and opportunity. Colorado boasts healthy living, robust lifestyles and fit people. Juxtaposed with this is Colorado’s ranking near the bottom of all states nationally for the number of children covered by health insurance, adults don’t fare much better, and we have a significant shortage of health professionals. A growing awareness of the serious plight this causes for thousands of Colorado families, and the heavy fiscal burden it places on our already challenged state budget is pushing state leaders, the health industry, advocates and consumers alike to work together for change. With our singularly focused vision and decade-long commitment, we believe we can help to sustain this momentum until comprehensive, meaningful change is realized. Throughout our intensive planning process, we maintained our commitments to more than a dozen already established long-term initiatives. Ranging from Bullying Prevention to School-based Health Care, to Preventing Suicide and Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Families, we made over $18.5 million in grants in 2007. This report highlights a few of these efforts, including the Safe2Tell Hotline, recipient of The Trust’s first annual grantee leadership award. A small but powerful organization, Safe2Tell is making life safer for young people in Colorado and garnering a good deal of interest nationally and internationally. Along with our full support for these initiatives – the last of which concludes in 2013 – we also made the first strategic grants in support of achieving access to health. This grantmaking underscores a new direction for The Trust with an emphasis on policy, advocacy and systems change – all necessary to achieve sustainable change. These initial grants included health care reform strategies, opportunities for public input about proposed state health care improvements, and addressing the chronic issue of our state’s nursing shortage. Grantmaking strategies also were approved by The Trust in December 2007, and got underway in early 2008, to provide support for advocacy organizations striving to increase health coverage and care, as well as increase awareness, educate and engage the business community and the public-at-large about the need to expand access to health. In all of this work, The Trust’s focus first and foremost is on the people who are most vulnerable and disadvantaged, including children and low-income working families. The ultimate goal is to ensure that all Coloradans will receive affordable, timely, quality care without exception for race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status or geographic location. Our long-term effort will, by necessity, evolve over time in response to Colorado’s policy, economic and social environment.
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