In 2018, Jeri Royce was named the first female president and CEO of Advance Community (then known as Esperanca), an organization that brings health resources to under resourced communities. By providing healthy meals, improving access to safer drinking water and teaching sustainable agricultural practices, Advance’s mission is to ensure health equity for all. During her first two years in the role, Royce worked with The Visionaries, an educational organization dedicated to sharing stories that inspire individuals and communities to take action for social change. Hosted by Law & Order’s Sam Waterston, the show airs on PBS stations across the country and featured the organization’s global healthcare work. Ecuador was added as a new partner country and the organization was one of the founding nonprofits that established the Arizona Global Development Network (AGDN) to support, inspire and provide resources for those who work in international development and humanitarian efforts. Believing strongly in the advancement of women in the workplace, she ensured other women had opportunities to take on leadership roles and focused on the diversification of the board of directors. Then the pandemic hit. “2020 was our 50th anniversary. We had plans in place to commemorate this milestone throughout the year. COVID-19 created a seismic shift across the entire organization,” says Royce, a 2023 Athena Award winner, who led the organization with a steady hand despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Never losing focus on its vision of providing health equity for everyone, the organization not only survived but thrived, leading Royce and her team to embrace a new mission in the past year: rebranding the 53-year-old nonprofit to better reflect its work today. “We have come a long way since our founding in 1970, so in 2023 we reintroduced ourselves as Advance, a new name and mission statement that clearly states who we are and what we do today – providing hope for under-resourced communities while advancing them through tangible, sustainable progress toward optimal health,” she says. Learn more at www.advancecommunity.org.
JERI ROYCE President and CEO, Advance Community
So Scottsdale! January ‘24
47