The EHF team is collaborating with the Pacific Northwest team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.   At the outset, we were excited about this learning opportunity and asked ourselves:

How can Empire Health Foundation, as a regional health funder in Eastern Washington, best play a value-added role in engaging with stakeholders in our seven-county region, the team at WSCADV, and program staff at the Gates Foundation around the DV Housing Project?  In what specific ways will EHF have the greatest impact?

Here's the quick overview for some context: To further the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Pacific Northwest Initiative goals to reduce and prevent both family violence and family homelessness, the Foundation is partnering with the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV) with the goal of increasing access to and resources for permanent housing for domestic violence survivors. The goal is to create a replicable service model that integrates DV and housing services, while responding to the unique needs of DV survivors.  After a very successful first phase, the EHF team is grateful to the Gates Foundation program team for inviting us to collaborate with them on the second phase.  We are excited that 4 applicants from our region submitted a letter of intent.

While it is still too early in the process to share our lessons learned so far, suffice to say that the EHF team has been significantly challenged in how we answer the above questions.