Practice what you preach.

Walk the talk.

Actions speak louder than words.

Those are general principles that many people strive to achieve in their daily lives.

When it comes to my job as a program officer at the Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health, I have a different motto that drives me.

“You don’t go into a community to look at the problem. You join a community to see the answers.”

Why is this so powerful? Because it’s exactly what we do with our Community Transformation Grants (CTG).

CTGs are $250,000 investments in making Idaho communities healthier places for children by promoting sustainable changes addressing physical activity and access to healthy foods. What makes our grants special are these facts:

• We understand that each community is different and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.
• The grants aren’t prescriptive. We don’t tell communities how to spend their grant money.
• The communities are the drivers of the grant. We provide them with access to subject matter experts, catalytic funding and technical assistance such as facilitation, project management.
• We help identify partnerships that benefit the community.

We don’t select CTG recipients based on “problems” in communities. We look for opportunities to create transformational change, community buy-in, champion leadership, a desire to improve health  through sustainable changes that will last for generations.

When we award a CTG, we join that community and become part of the team. We hope to empower transformational change that makes these cities better places for children to be healthy and thrive.