Family Voices, System Solutions

Family Voices, System Solutions: Building Power to Improve Health in Western Montana

The Future is Thriving

Join Headwaters Foundation as we embark on a transformative decade with our NEW 10-Year Strategic Framework

We aim to accelerate the active involvement of families in shaping solutions to Western Montana’s most pressing health challenges.

To get there, we’ll...

Deploy $100 Million + through grantmaking, technical assistance and other impactful strategies.

Go upstream to power community-driven approaches that address social and economic barriers to health.

Center those most impacted by health disparities to ensure that their voices are heard.

Three newly-defined strategic pillars will drive our e orts...

Engaged Families

Parents, caregivers, and youth are empowered to change the policies and systems that impact their health.

In our toolbox...

Strong Organizations

Nonprofits are equipped to e ectively engage youth and families in advocacy to improve health outcomes.

Deploying resources through Grantmaking

Building community at our Nonprofit Event Space

Collaborating and Convening to share learnings

Boosting Organizational Resilience through technical assistance

Using our Public Influence to amplify, advocate and research

Exploring Social Impact Investing to increase impact

Supportive Ecosystem

The culture and structure of the policy landscape prioritizes the health of families and is receptive to their needs.

We are committed to practicing Trust-Based Philanthropy, and embedding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) into every facet of our work.

Read on for the full 10-year strategic framework

Who We Are

Our Story and Process

Headwaters Foundation formed in 2016 as a steward of community resources that were transitioned into an endowment after the sale of Community Medical Center.

We started by traveling throughout our region to hear from neighbors about the most pressing issues they were facing.

We learned that Western Montanans wanted funds to benefit children, families, and Native American communities, go ‘upstream’ to address the root causes of problems, and support collaboration between organizations and across sectors.

What we heard on our first ‘tour’ echoed as we continued to listen to the needs of Western Montanans during the development of our 2024-2033 Strategic Framework.

This comprehensive and collaborative process centered the perspectives of those facing significant barriers to health in our state.

We gathered and analyzed data related to health outcomes in Montana and surveyed and interviewed grantee partners. We also conducted focus groups with low-income families and those living in rural areas, single parents, Spanish-speakers, Indigenous women and LGBTQ+ individuals to ensure that their voices were heard as we shaped our future initiatives.

Our Mission:

We work side-by-side with Western Montanans to improve the health of our communities.

We envision a Western Montana where children and families are healthy and strong, communities are thriving, and the voices of those most impacted by inequity are heard as they actively engage in shaping solutions for their communities. bullseye-arrow

Our Vision:

Our Values:

We are guided by the following principles:

Honor and build community power

Elevate equity in a trust-based way

Build trusting relationships

Be transparent in all we do

Be accountable to our communities

Honor Tribal sovereignty

Learn as we go

Our Commitments

Leading with Trust

At Headwaters Foundation, we practice a different kind of philanthropy—a kind that builds trusting relationships, supports partners beyond grantmaking and centers learning together. Through trust-based philanthropy, we seek to demonstrate humility and collaboration in our culture, structures, leadership and practices. This looks like:

Centering our partners by listening, learning from their expertise, and responding to their needs and feedback.

Allowing partners to focus on community needs by simplifying our processes and doing our own due diligence.

Supporting the capacity and flexibility of partners by offering unrestricted, multi-year funding when possible.

Investing beyond grantmaking by providing opportunities for partners to boost organizational and individual health.

Building relationships that do not require absolute success or perfection, inspiring transparency and honesty. circle-check circle-check circle-check circle-check circle-check

Elevating Equity in a Trust-Based Way

At Headwaters Foundation, we meet communities where they are by listening, trusting and being accountable to them. We are committed to supporting:

Diversity: We recognize and take joy in the diversity of our place and our people. We seek an equitable community where all have a place. We embrace our humanity and what unites us.

Equity: We seek to address and remove systemic and historic inequities that have created health disparities. We recognize that philanthropies hold power and seek to relinquish that power to those most impacted by inequities and the organizations and people who support them.

Inclusion: We believe that every Montanan, especially those who have historically been under-represented, should have an opportunity to inform and lead the efforts needed to achieve a healthy and thriving Western Montana.

We pledge to embed and institutionalize Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) into every facet of our work at Headwaters Foundation.

Our Strategy

Our strategy is the driving force behind our efforts to meet our mission and goals, representing the core of what we will focus on for the next decade. While specific issue areas and grantmaking initiatives may adapt in response to evolving context and community needs, this strategy will continuously guide the ways we work.

Working Upstream, Building Power

In the next decade, Headwaters Foundation will build on previous work powering community-driven, upstream approaches to address social and economic barriers that keep people from leading healthy, fulfilling lives. Moving forward, our strategy will be to invest in building the power of families to catalyze change on a range of issues impacting their health.

Central to this strategy is supporting organizations and their constituents to identify and advocate for solutions to key health challenges in their communities.

Priority Populations

We will support organizations that work alongside families (with children aged 0-18) most impacted by health disparities – those that live below 200% of the federal poverty level, identify as Native American, Indigenous, Black, or people of color and/or families with children with disabilities or who identify as LGBTQ+.

What does health mean to us?

At Headwaters Foundation, we view health as much more than a visit to the doctor’s office. A person’s health is powerfully influenced by factors and systems ‘upstream’ from medical care, known as ‘social determinants of health.’

Key determinants identified by our community include early care and education, youth mental health and access to healthy food and affordable housing.

Three Strategic Pillars

We believe that those in closest proximity to the health challenges they face are best positioned to identify solutions. Yet, families are rarely engaged in decision-making to improve the systems that directly impact their wellbeing.

For this reason, the bulk of the work that we support is focused on powering collaboration, coordination, and advocacy for longterm changes in the systems that impact the health of families, rather than funding direct service interventions.

Over the next ten years, Headwaters Foundation’s work will be guided by the following three strategic pillars, which we have identified as essential to improving the health of our communities:

Engaged Families: Parents, caregivers, and youth are empowered to change the policies and systems that impact the health of their families and communities.

Strong Organizations: Nonprofits are equipped to effectively engage youth and families in advocacy to improve health outcomes.

Supportive Ecosystem: The culture and structure of the policy landscape prioritizes the health of families and is receptive to their involvement and needs.

Ways We Work

Headwaters Foundation works upstream to address the social and economic barriers that keep people from leading healthy, fulfilling lives.

We fund community-led solutions and go beyond grantmaking by convening and coordinating partners, sparking collaboration, investing in tailored support to strengthen nonprofits, and actively participating in the public discourse about health in our state.

Grantmaking

Through five initial grantmaking funds, Headwaters Foundation aims to build power with families from our priority populations to improve health outcomes. We equip organizations to bring parents, caregivers, and youth into policymaking spaces to ensure that those facing the highest barriers to health in our state are part of crafting and carrying out solutions.

(Fund criteria will be developed in 2024; we expect to operationalize in 2025.)

Family Power Fund: This fund supports organizing and engagement efforts designed to empower families and youth to participate in policymaking discussions and decisions that impact their lives.

Advocacy Capacity Fund: This fund equips organizations to effectively engage families in advocacy efforts geared toward systemic change for improved health.

Health Policy Ecosystem Fund: The goal of this fund is to cultivate a policy landscape that prioritizes the health of families and is receptive to their involvement and needs.to their involvement and needs.

GO! Grant Fund: Through this fund, we provide quick-turnaround general operating grants to organizations serving low-income kids and families in rural areas outside of Western Montana’s major cities.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Partnership Fund: Through this fund, we engage and coordinate with Tribal leaders to support their work to improve health outcomes for Native Americans residing on the Flathead Nation.

Social Impact Investments

Headwaters Foundation will explore innovative avenues for supporting partners and communities through social impact investing. Examples may include low-interest loans, social impact bonds and program-related investments. (Operational TBD)

Coordination, Collaboration and Convening

As a foundation, we have a birds-eye view of how nonprofits and communities are working to improve health in Western Montana. We leverage this strength by investing in opportunities for our partners to connect with others in their field to share learnings, brainstorm solutions and coordinate their work.

Organizational Resiliency

The strength of Montana’s nonprofits and their leaders is key to achieving better health outcomes for our communities. For this reason, informed by feedback from our partners, we invest in training, technical assistance, and other opportunities to boost leadership and resiliency.

Public Influence

We use our voice as a funder to help shape public narratives and the policy ecosystem to better support the health and wellbeing of families and communities. This includes amplifying the work of our partners, advocating for public policy and systems change and commissioning and disseminating research to give nonprofits and policymakers insight into our shared issue areas and bolster proposed solutions.

Community Gathering Space

Our headquarters in downtown Missoula features a home for nonprofit events called Confluence Center, where leaders converge (free-of-charge) to learn, problem-solve and brainstorm ideas about how best to serve their communities. All are welcomed and celebrated at this inclusive, accessible and user-friendly space.

Evaluating Impact

We evaluate for three purposes – accountability to the communities we serve, learning about progress toward the outcomes defined by our partners, and tracking long-term health metrics over time to see if the strategies that Headwaters invests in are contributing to positive trends.

Our accountability evaluation process includes internal and external surveys and organizational goal tracking. Through grantee reporting conversations, we track indicators related to community-designed outcomes such as increased capacity and leadership, cultural and narrative shifts that prioritize health, engagement of underrecognized voices in advocacy, greater funding for health equity work, and a better policy environment.

Additionally, Headwaters Foundation tracks long-term indicators related to family resiliency, early childhood, food and housing security and youth mental health to keep a pulse on systems change and understand health disparities within the communities we serve.

We publish what we learn annually in our Evaluation and Learning Data Book. Learn more about our evaluation and impact and see our most recent learning book on our website.

Our Budget

Headwaters Foundation is committed to deploying a diverse range of strategies aimed at sparking lasting, systemic changes to improve the health of families in Western Montana. This commitment extends beyond grantmaking, encompassing ‘beyond the check’ support such as convenings, technical assistance, community event space and other programmatic efforts.

The Headwaters Foundation Board of Directors expects to allocate resources totaling up to $101 million throughout the duration of this strategic framework. This is subject to potential adjustments based on the evolving nature of our work, changes in the contextual environment and other factors that could impact our overall spending.