We believe all Central Texans should have the opportunity to achieve optimal health. Health equity is achieved when you can no longer predict how healthy a person is – or will be – by their race, ethnicity, gender or zip code. Across all the Foundation’s goals and principles, we are guided by a commitment to achieve health equity.

Access to high quality medical care is essential to overall health. While some aspects of a person’s health depend on individual behavior and choice, approximately 80% of health is shaped by community-wide factors. Problems such as poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing, lack of public transportation, low educational attainment, and neighborhood deterioration shape a person’s health. Many of these factors – economic, environmental, educational, and behavioral – exist outside of the healthcare system and are the most influential drivers of health.

We are committed to taking a strength-based approach to social services in which we listen to and trust the communities we serve, and where we can work alongside our grantees and partners to strengthen institutions that support health, such as strong safety net and specialty care clinics, while also prioritizing the other factors that contribute to health and well-being.

Through strategic grantmaking, we seek to center people and communities in all that we support and partner with institutions that promote health and well-being across the following areas of opportunity: