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How We Work
Committing our resources to remove barriers and improve systems and conditions for a healthier community.
Advancing Health Equity Through Investment and Action
Through a unique partnership with St. David’s HealthCare, we strategically reinvest proceeds from the hospital system back into the community, with a goal of advancing health equity and improving the health and well-being of our most underserved Central Texas neighbors. Beyond our grantmaking work, we operate the largest mobile dental program in the country providing charity care and offer the largest healthcare scholarship program in Texas, the St. David’s Neal Kocurek Program.
Through investment and action, we are committed to centering health equity in all that we do so that all Central Texans have a fair chance to achieve optimal health with no avoidable, unjust, or systematically caused differences in health status due to ethnicity, race, age, ability, or geography. Put simply: we support individuals and families in our community who face barriers to flourishing. We are committed to and will evolve towards upstream and transformational work to improve systems and conditions for a healthier community.
Our Goals for
Central Texas
Our goals were informed by discussions with staff, our Board, and the community; external research; and the findings of the most recent Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), through which we more deeply understand our region’s true health needs – particularly those faced by historically underserved community members.
We center our work on addressing individual and systemic barriers to health for individuals whose income falls below the minimum level necessary for survival for a household with an intentional focus on historically marginalized identity groups (e.g., Black, Hispanic, women, members of the LGBTQ community, refugees, and undocumented immigrants).
Foundation-Wide Impact Framework
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Supporting Service Delivery
Increase the number of people receiving high quality services
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Catalyzing Community
Strengthen community leadership, networks, and collective action
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Developing Capacity
Increase the effectiveness of organizations or sector
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Changing Systems
Influence public or private sector actions, policies, and investments
How We’re Reaching Our Goals
Guided by a shared vision, we will harness all Foundation resources as we work to advance health equity.
Grantmaking
Investing nearly $80M annually to support community health and wellbeing.
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Given our growth as a Foundation over nearly three decades, we are now in a position to support immediate health needs today as well as invest in improved health tomorrow. This evolution allowed us to broaden our focus on healthcare to the more expansive mission of advancing health equity.
Scholarship Program
Easing the financial burden for students pursuing health studies and supporting student success.
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The St. David’s Neal Kocurek Scholarship is the largest healthcare scholarship program in the state of Texas. High school seniors from Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson counties who want to pursue careers in healthcare and plan to attend college in Texas are eligible to apply for up to $60,000 in financial aid over the course of their higher education.
Communications
Sharing what we are learning to create a community-wide understanding of health equity.
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Informing, amplifying, and activating the Foundation’s mission, strategy, and impact throughout the Central Texas community and the field of philanthropy to educate and inspire further progress.
Mobile Dental Program
Providing highly accessible, evidence-based oral care for disadvantaged children in Central Texas.
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St. David’s Foundation’s Mobile Dental Program offers 100% free dental care to students at high-need elementary schools in six Central Texas school districts. When school is not in session, our vans partner with area social service agencies to serve adults and families. This is the largest mobile charity dental program in the country.
Learning & Evaluation
Using data and research to bring diverse stakeholders into a shared conversation to realize deeper insights.
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Learning from and alongside our community is at the core of everything we do. We are dedicated to ensuring that data, research, and learning drive the evolution of our strategy, support sound funding decisions, and inspire action to advance health equity in Central Texas.
Health equity continues to be our north star. In shifting from a focus on health to one of health equity, we reorient our strategy from just funding services for the most vulnerable to also working to eliminate systemic and cultural barriers preventing healthy outcomes from the outset for generations to come.
