Strengthening Community Infrastructure to Improve Community Health

This session will highlight the Healthy Neighborhood Equity Fund and Invest Appalachia, two social impact investment funds that are focused on strengthening communities through investments in health clinics, housing, and other community infrastructure. Panelists will outline the strategies they employ to maximize community impact, including efforts to assess community need through community engagement, partnerships and collaborations to expand impact, and financing strategies to ensure sustainability. The session will highlight differences in the challenges and opportunities of doing this work in urban and rural settings (including higher costs and community opposition in urban areas, and lack of scale and distance barriers in rural communities) alike and will include how each of these funds concretely measure community impact.