In January 2019, Moses Taylor Foundation officially launched an ambitious five-year strategic plan, informed by feedback from grantees, public sector partners, colleague funders, and community members. The resulting plan built upon the established grantmaking areas of primary health care, mental and behavioral health, dental care and oral health, health care workforce, and human services. In addition, strategic initiatives—which sought to advance specific community health issues—were launched as a complement to the existing to the existing Responsive Grantmaking Focus Area. The selected initiatives included expanding school-based health, reducing expanding school-based health, reducing older adult isolation, and championing capacity building.
The enclosed pages depict our progress throughout the five-year period through a series of infographics and roadmaps. They tell the story of the Foundation during this time and demonstrate our commitment to improving the health of people in Northeastern Pennsylvania. They highlight successes and pivots, lessons learned, and future plans. At the Foundation, we are proud of what was accomplished during this time and look forward to advancing our mission into the future.
For the past 10 years, Moses Taylor Foundation has been a trusted partner with organizations throughout the region in identifying and addressing community health needs. Here, in our Report to the Community, Foundation board members, staff, and grantees reflect on past and current accomplishments and where future initiatives and grantmaking can continue to make a difference.
Report to the Community Features
In the nonprofit sector, evaluation can be intimidating. It's viewed as a critical ruler that measures a program's value and worth, a compliance requirement that organizations use to secure funding, and a hoop that funders require grantees to jump through. We see it differently.
We know that the complex, incremental work of improving people’s health and transforming a community is challenging. Progress can be difficult to measure and results can shift as circumstances evolve. An intentional commitment to learning is our best tactic to gauge impact, direct finite resources, and know when it’s time to change course.
We embrace an approach to evaluation and learning that puts our partners and the people they serve at the center. We encourage our partners to ask questions and set metrics that give them the insight and information they need to do their work well. In turn, we use our grantees’ progress reports to instruct us on where we need to invest more—or invest differently—to achieve our shared goals.
Throughout this biennial report, we highlight stories of how our partners are using evaluation and learning to inform their work. With each story, we also share our own learning journey—discovering what it takes to be a valued community partner and how we can effectively support and catalyze meaningful impact in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
This report highlights grant-funded projects in the Foundation’s five priority areas: primary health care, behavioral health, oral health, health care workforce, and human services that promote good health. Collectively, they tell the story of how we are partnering to improve health in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
In the coming years, we look forward to deepening relationships with existing grantees and expanding our partnerships across the region. We commit to continue investing our resources to respond to community needs. At the same time, we are enthusiastic about exploring where the Foundation can target a portion of its resources to catalyze transformative impact.
This is an opportunity to write the next chapter in our region’s health—together.
As the delivery of health care and the health needs of our region continue to evolve, our commitment to meeting the needs of the most vulnerable in our communities remains the same. We thank you for your partnership and your essential contributions to our unfolding story!
