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What We’re Learning

We endeavor to be adaptive to the feedback of our grantee partners and needs of our community.

Photo by Anne Day.

Staff of Brooker Memorial review a report together.

Staff of Brooker Memorial. Brooker is a long-standing grantee partner of FCH, through their School-Based Oral Health Program which serves several school districts in Litchfield County.

Photo by Anne Day.

How we learn

Our evaluation tools center the experiences, expertise, and goals of the nonprofits we partner with. We utilize surveys to understand the impact of our unrestricted funding, hold conversations in lieu of written reports, and track key metrics that we believe the strategies of the foundation can be attributed to.

Learning & Results

Members of the Litchfield County Opiate Task Force, a collaborative effort in northwest Connecticut. FCH provided seed funding to staff the task force which currently is sustiaining its operations through federal funding.

Photo by Anne Day.

How we’re improving

We measure our effectiveness as a trust-based funder through an annual Grantee Perception Survey to understand how our grantee partners perceive our processes and approach to partnership. We regularly identify and share how we’re looking to improve and where we’re making changes.

Ways We’re Improving

Health& is a series designed to explore the ways health influences every aspect of our lives and how our life circumstances impact our health. We offer this series to spark conversation, encourage new thinking, and inform decision making at the local level.

Photo by Walter Hergt.

November 8, 2024

HEALTH & SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

How we grow our food directly impacts our health – from the quality of the air we breathe and water we drink, to the nutrients in our food and the economic vitality of our farming communities. Health and agriculture interact simultaneously and in both directions; health influences agriculture and agriculture influences health. Transforming our agricultural system is achievable, despite the hurdles in the way…
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Photo courtesy of Sarah Salem.

March 15, 2024

HEALTH & THE FOOD SYSTEM

The fact that our food system is largely dependent upon factory farms and monoculture to feed the masses comes at a huge cost to the planet and our collective well-being. The concentration of corporate power in the current food system has effectively spurred a contemporary health crisis…
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Photo courtesy of Renee Giroux and Janna Siller.

February 15, 2024

HEALTH & FOOD AGGREGATION AND DISTRIBUTION

Across the country, Americans are increasingly disconnected from the food they consume and how it was produced. In large part, our food system hinges on factory farms and commodity crops — pervasive problems plaguing our collective health. Unhealthy food systems come at a steep economic cost…
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Explore Our Publications

Addressing Gender-Based Violence at its Roots

Despite decades of crisis intervention, policy advancement, and funding for crisis services, domestic violence continues to affect a shockingly large proportion of the population.

Health Profession Rural Summer Immersion Program

Facing critical health care professional shortages in its rural region, FCH spearheaded the creation of a low-cost “pipeline” program to encourage health…

Addressing northwest Connecticut’s Addiction Crisis

Addiction, a chronic illness that changes brain chemistry, disproportionately impacts rural communities, in part, due to insufficient: prevention outreach; addiction treatment and other health care resources…

Improving Children’s Oral Health

In an effort to stem the tide of untreated tooth decay, FCH has invested in school-based oral health preventative services since its inception. More than 7,000 children…