Vitalyst believes Informed decision-makers prioritize community health and well-being. Healthy communities are created when decision-makers champion proven solutions and local insights. By bringing together local nonprofit advocates focused on health policy and informing decision-makers at city, county and state levels, Vitalyst uses its network to leverage the power of diverse, informed perspectives and organize around common goals. This allows Vitalyst and its partners to influence and advance decisions that value community health.

Informed Voters

During the 2022 election, Vitalyst used its voice to advocate for initiatives that would increase community health and advocated in support of ballot propositions 209: medical debt collection protection; 211: transparency in political campaign media spending; 308: classification of students for tuition purposes; and 310: taxation benefitting fire districts. Vitalyst also advocated in opposition to propositions 128: legislature initiative and referendum; 132: 60% vote for legislature and initiative referendums; and 309: additional voter identification.

Arizona Community Health Workers Voluntary Certification

Although Vitalyst did not specifically work on this during fiscal year 2022 – 2023, it is something we want to highlight because it came to fruition during this fiscal year after years of hard work by many partners. The Arizona Community Health Worker (CHW) community and partners like the Arizona Community Health Worker Association (AzCHOW) had been working on policy changes that would allow for voluntary certification for workers since 2016, when AzCHOW received a Vitalyst Innovation Grant (the predecessor to our Systems Change Grants. In 2018, House Bill 2324 established the CHW voluntary certification, and in September  2022, Gov. Doug Ducey approved the rules for the voluntary certification process.

Housing: Promising Housing Practices in Arizona Spark Brief and Housing Webinar Series

In the spring of 2023, Vitalyst published the Spark Brief, Promising Housing Practices in Arizona, which presents case studies that highlight a variety of housing initiatives—from expanded use of accessory dwelling units and other creative land uses to mixed-use communities and the application of innovative building technologies. After an initial webinar with the Maricopa Association of Governments, a series of webinars and mini episodes were produced to inform housing nonprofits and nonprofit developers find ways to solve the Arizona housing shortage.

Podcast

The Vitalyst Spark Podcast is a channel Vitalyst uses to highlight the work of our partners and inform community members and decision-makers about innovative solutions happening across Arizona’s communities. This past fiscal year was a period that included the 2022 election, the Medicaid member eligibility redetermination, and housing shortage, and many more community health challenges that allowed our staff to highlight Vitalyst viewpoints and our partners’ work. Listen to the podcast on your favorite platform. We hope it helps shed light on the issues Arizona is facing.