Goals that are further out in front of you can tend to appear fuzzy, complicated, and out of reach. They look that way, that is, right up until the moment that you start to connect the dots.

Hospital Community Benefits and Healthy Community Development are no exception to this experience. Both of these subjects look complex and have a “devil-is-in-the-details” way of trying to slip your grasp. Each has its history also, but things are changing for both. In 2010, the Affordable Care Act created opportunities for Community Benefit spending to increase its focus on healthy community work. Nonprofit hospitals and other organizations have started to evolve their thinking about what those options mean in practice.

That makes it a good time to connect the dots and see what’s possible.

Connecting the Dots: A Healthy Community Leader’s Guide to Understanding Nonprofit Hospital Community Benefit Requirements is a brand new Policy Primer from St. Luke’s Health Initiatives that’s been developed to increase understanding and create opportunities to connect Community Development with Community Benefit. It provides a guide for how Community Development leaders can begin to connect with nonprofit hospitals, building on a brief tracing of community benefit history and examination of current Community Health Needs Assessment work and hospital funding priorities.

Take a closer look at the past and present of Community Benefits in ways that allow Healthy Community Design leaders to engage with hospitals in making that most of a future together. Download Connecting the Dots today.