“Our name has changed, but our commitment remains the same.”

It is our pleasure to share with you an exciting new development for the foundation. After extensive research and consideration, St. Luke’s Health Initiatives is changing its name to Vitalyst Health Foundation.

Organizational names are, in essence, calling cards, designed to convey a sense of what the organization and its people stand for, what it cares about, and what it has challenged itself to accomplish. For nearly two decades, our philanthropic work grew and evolved, while our name – and what it was perceived to represent – did not.

Research and direct feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders confirmed that the St. Luke’s Health Initiatives name did not accurately reflect the depth and breadth of our work, creating associations that were not only inaccurate but confusing. Since 1996, the foundation has been completely independent of the St. Luke’s Health System, and also does not have any religious affiliation. Yet there is not a week that goes by that we don’t field some vendor call about hospital-related supplies and/or the provision of direct medical services.

As we have responded to the needs of the communities we serve, the extent of our health improvement work has expanded greatly – so much so that our grantmaking and health care system work represents only a portion of what we do today.

Rather than continue to explain who we are not, we embarked on the search for a name that represents who we ARE. We concluded that our name should concisely answer the questions:

• Who are we? We are a foundation focused on health.
• Why do we exist? Improved health results in renewed vitality for both the individual and community.
• How do we succeed? By serving as a convener and catalyst for change.

And so our quest for community vitality, combined with our role as a catalyst, has now transformed us into Vitalyst Health Foundation. Rest assured, our name has changed but our mission, passion and dedication to our four essential priorities all remain:

1. Increase access to care and coverage, because Arizonans with coverage and care achieve better well-being and health than those who do not.
2. Promote healthy community design policies and practices, because health is created where we live, work and play.
3. Build community capacity that improves the effectiveness of community-based organizations, because dynamic and healthy communities are based on civic participation that propels policy and systems change.
4. Stimulate innovation and collaboration, because policies and systems are transformed for the better when we align insightful stakeholders with compelling ideas and take risks to make change happen.

The dictionary tells us that vitality represents “exuberant physical strength or mental vigor; the power to live or grow.” It reveals a catalyst as “a person or event that causes change or action; an element that causes a reaction to happen more quickly.” You may notice that our logo contains a “spark” to visually reinforce what our change is all about.

As Vitalyst Health Foundation, we look forward to meeting you at the nexus of these two definitions, where you’ll find our mission, our work and our people. Thank you for joining us in the continuing quest to improve the health of all Arizonans.