Partner with Members and Communities

What is this and why does it matter?

Patients and community members experience health care differently than providers and staff—they recognize barriers to care firsthand and offer invaluable insight into why inequities exist and how to address them. Their perspectives are not supplementary; they are essential. Without direct engagement, organizations risk developing solutions that miss the mark or reinforce existing inequities.

True partnership means centering patient and community voices, not merely consulting them. This requires shared decision-making power, fair compensation for their time and expertise, and a commitment to long-term relationship-building.

Prioritize early and sustained engagement by:

• Including patients and community representatives in focus groups, surveys, and planning discussions
• Ensuring diverse representation across race, gender, ethnicity, disability, immigration status, and other intersecting identities
• Compensating community members fairly for their time and contributions
• Embedding patient and community perspectives into both root cause analysis and solution design

How should you work through this component?

Begin with the Partnering with Members and Communities Base Deck to align your team on why and how to build strong community partnerships in service of health equity. Then work through the following resources:

• Gathering Input from Individuals Experiencing Inequities: Practical Facilitation Guidance — Best practices for inclusive engagement, selecting identity-aligned facilitators, honoring intersectionality, and reporting back to community members
• Tips for In-Person and Virtual Engagement — Strategies for conducting focus groups, interviews, and surveys, with practical guidance on recruitment, logistics, and content design
• IMI’s SDOH Toolkit — Actionable worksheets and guidance for building trust-based partnerships between Medicaid MCOs and community-based organizations
• The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership — A framework for deepening community-driven decision-making across stages of engagement (for AHE’s RIC, prioritize pages 2, 6–11, and 13)

When does it make sense to work through this component?

Engage communities from the very beginning. Organizations should involve community members before designing any intervention to ensure their perspectives shape the approach. If engagement has been lacking, pause and re-engage—instead of moving forward based on assumptions.

Curriculum to be completed for this component:

Self-Assessment Topics and Questions:

1. Does the team membership include people with lived experience of the health inequities being addressed and who do not work at the partner organization(s)?
   1. If not, what is the team’s short-, mid-, and long-term plan to begin partnering with people with lived experience of the inequities being addressed?
      1. Is the plan based on the recommendations of the  Movement Strategy Center’s Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership or a similar model?
         1. If not, why not?
   2. If yes:
      1. Where does the partnership fall in terms of the Movement Strategy Center’s Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership?
      2. What is working well with the partnership from the perspective of the team?
      3. What is working well from the perspective of the people with lived experience who are not employed by the partner organizations?
      4. What are the team member’s recommendations for improving the partnership?
      5. What are the recommendations of the team members with lived experience?
      6. What is the teams’ plan for enhancing and strengthening the partnership(s) over time by moving to the next level of the Movement Strategy Center’s Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership?

2. Does the team partner with community-based organizations?

1. If not, what is the team’s short-, mid-, and long-term plan to begin partnering with community based organizations?
   1. Is the plan based on the recommendations of the  Movement Strategy Center’s Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership?
      1. If not, why not?
2. If yes:
   1. Where do the partnerships fall in terms of the Movement Strategy Center’s Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership?
   2. What is working well with the partnership from the perspective of the team?
   3. What is working well from the perspective of the community based organizations?
   4. What are the team member’s recommendations for improving the partnership?
   5. What are the recommendations of the community based organizations?
   6. What is the teams’ plan for enhancing and strengthening the partnership(s) over time by moving to the next level of the Movement Strategy Center’s Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership?

3. What are your short-term (0-1 year) goals and objectives for collaborating with patients and/or community-based organizations?

1. What are your mid-term (1-2 years) goals and objectives for the(se) partnership(s)?**

2. What are your long-term (3-5 years) goals and objectives for the(se) partnership(s)?**

4. Where does your initiative fall within the developmental stages of community engagement to ownership?

5. What challenges or roadblocks to developing strong partnerships have you identified?

6. Are there any current partnership activities directly related to this initiative/LC?
   1. How would you describe their level of success?
      1. What is working?
      2. What are the opportunities to improve?
   2. Describe any opportunities that members/patient/community partners have to provide feedback.
   3. Have the partnerships resulted in any changes to the initiative?
      1. How did this come about?
      2. Please describe the changes.
      3. How was agreement reached regarding the need for the changes and how they will be implemented?
   4. How do you think your partners would describe the partnership and its level of success?
      1. Have they provided any formal or informal feedback? What is it?

7. Are there any current partnership activities not related to this initiative at any of the partner organizations?

8. What resources or technical assistance have you used to facilitate building partnerships with patients/members or community-based organizations?

Goal and Objective Setting:

About the Roadmap Goal and Objective Setting Tool

This tool is designed to facilitate goal setting and completion for your team. The tool will allow your team to:

1) Record goals that align with the various Roadmap components; 

2) Record objectives, time frames, and target completion dates, among other important items for each goal; and 

3) Monitor progress of goals per Roadmap component

Your team is welcome to engage with this tool as much or as little as it would like, and is helpful, in the development, implementation, and evaluation of your health equity initiative. We encourage you to use this tool to ensure clear goal setting and promote consistent communication, accountability, and progress within your team. This tool is designed to be used over time as your team progresses through the Roadmap and your initiative. This is in no way intended to be used one way by all teams. This is meant to help you progress through the Roadmap component(s) on which you are working at a given time and you may reach your goals in any order. We welcome you to consult your AHE TA lead on getting started with this tool.

Each Roadmap component is listed as a separate tab. Navigate to the desired Roadmap component via the task bar at the bottom of the spreadsheet to add, edit, or view goals. Hide certain tabs as needed to narrow your view to specific Roadmap components or the snapshot. Changing the status of a goal will automatically shift the Snapshot view for the specific Roadmap component.