December 2018 Issue

As we set out to plan this special issue of Spotlight, we thought: Who best to reflect on 20 years of Community Catalyst than those who know us best – our partners in the world of advocacy, philanthropy, government and, of course, our founder. And so, in this issue we are honored to share reflections from: former Obama Administration official, state legislator and advocate, Anton Gunn; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program officers Lori Grubstein and David Adler; Pennsylvania Health Access Network Executive Director Antoinette Kraus; and Community Catalyst Founder and President Kate Villers. We are deeply grateful to each of them and to all the individuals and organizations who have made it possible for Community Catalyst to organize and sustain a powerful consumer voice to ensure all individuals and communities can influence the local, state and national decisions that affect their health – our dedicated mission for the past two decades. We look forward to working alongside them and to building new partnerships over the next 20 years as, together, we strive to advance health justice. (Please be sure to check out our 20^th Anniversary timeline for milestones of the past two decades!)

—Kathy Melley, Director of Communications

When I established Community Catalyst in 1998, it was to help build in other states the advocacy capacities and infrastructure that had enabled Massachusetts health care consumers to drive progressive reforms since the 1980s. Those reforms had already made the state a national leader in meeting the health needs of key vulnerable constituencies.

(By Kate Villers, President, Community Catalyst)

It would be hard to imagine what the last decade of health advocacy work at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) would look like without Community Catalyst.

(By David Adler and Lori Grubstein of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)

In a way, I joined the Community Catalyst family before Community Catalyst even existed.

When I was in my twenties, I worked as a community organizer for South Carolina Fair Share, a multi-issue grassroots advocacy organization that educated constituents and advanced public policy to improve the health and well-being of South Carolinians.

(By Anton Gunn, Board Member, Community Catalyst)

Community Catalyst has stood side by side with the Pennsylvania Health Access Network (PHAN) since our founding in 2007. A small group of concerned advocates came together to create PHAN out of the Consumer Voices for Coverage grant funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. None of these groups had been exclusively focused on health care. The coalition began with dedicated staff and a simple mission: increase access to coverage in Pennsylvania. The need for a knowledgeable, experienced source for building policy expertise, capacity and strengthening grassroots advocacy was apparent, and Community Catalyst filled that role.

(By Antoinette Kraus, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Health Access Network)