Bringing together partners fosters cross-sector integration and builds networks for health and well-being.

For more information and to read Vitalyst’s relevant resources, see:

How School Districts Can Create Attainable Housing Opportunities (June 2021)
Building Healthy Communities: Tenants Eviction Assistance Project and Maintaining Stable Housing (June 2021)
Why Collaboration Matters Today: Collaborating with Coalitions  (June 2020)
Pre-Community Engagement: Setting the Stage for Authentic Community Engagement  (January 2019)

Local First Arizona

Current Initiatives

The Cover Arizona Coalition

Vitalyst convenes a statewide coalition of over 1,000 members whose aim is to help more Arizonans gain access to affordable, high-quality health insurance. The Coalition is comprised of the state’s federally-funded navigator organizations, and a wide array of community-based organizations, health providers, tribal representatives and advocates. Collectively, the group is engaged in the following activities:

Enrollment Assistance and Training:

The coalition helps train and support hundreds of navigators, certified application counselors and front-line professionals who are helping Arizonans enroll in health coverage. The Coalition’s website hosts the Get Covered Connector, an easy scheduling tool that allows consumers to connect with professionals (for free) who can answer questions and assist with enrollment. The site also provides information about available health insurance resources and enrollment events occurring throughout the state.

Arizona Town Hall

Our work with Arizona Town Hall continued this year. Carrying on the 113th Arizona Town Hall topic of “Creating Vibrant Communities,” we conducted two community town halls: one focused on showcasing social services like the Eviction Helpline, and Double Up Food Bucks, a program that allows SNAP recipients to receive 2 for 1 fresh produce at farmers markets. We also worked with tribal partners to showcase how organizations across Arizona are incorporating the Elements of a Healthy Tribal Community into their work. The 114^th Arizona Town Hall topic, “Mental Illness, Substance Use, and Homelessness,” created opportunities for meaningful dialogue with community members with lived experience and decision-makers to come together and find common sense solutions to some of our community’s most pressing issues.

Arizona Food Systems Network

Vitalyst supports the work of the Network, which is a coalition of local, state, and regional advocates within the food system who have interest in improving the food system for all Arizonans. Learn more about Arizona Food Systems Network here.

Civic Health

Reforming systems that create barriers to civic engagement takes collective work. Our work with partners like Instituto to launch its “Building for the Future” project, a three-part effort to inform the specific needs of Arizona nonprofits working to increase civic engagement in the most underrepresented groups. The three strategies from Instituto’s project include research; seed funding; and technical assistance. Our work with One Arizona supported their efforts to document the redistricting work with community participants and augment 2022 coalition goals to increase participation in the 2022 election.

Housing

Vitalyst’s work in housing deepened through various partnerships. Our work with school districts and developers continued to create toolkits for other school districts to use when and if they can provide land to build community-centric housing and services. Always looking for innovative solutions, Vitalyst and partners are building a cohort of local churches that want to develop workforce housing with supportive services.