As we approach the end of the year, I want to share a few of the things we have accomplished. In this season of gratitude and community, we are thankful for our early supporters who donated throughout the year as we started strategic planning and met with communities around the state. If you would like to join us in this work, we would appreciate your joining our end-of-year giving campaign!

 

We started the year with Gladiator Consulting to develop our first strategic plan. The Gladiator team helped solidify our purpose, revise our mission, and confirm instincts in our original founding that we cannot build a healthier Missouri without collaboration and partnerships. In that vein, we included community and organizational leaders’ input through interviews and workshops. Participants asked questions that sparked ideas on how our work can be helpful to their organizations and helped further cultivate relationships with potential partners.  The key next steps from the strategic plan include:

• continuing to build relationships around the state with organizations that also work in our focus areas
• exploring the data and conducting our research to fill data gaps
• developing and implementing staffing, operations, and fundraising plans.

 

We are now working on all three of these – including expanding our staff and preparing to begin serving as a fiscal sponsor to projects in the new year.

 

From May to September, I traveled around the state to meet with local and statewide organizations, increasing the availability of healthy and affordable housing, filling gaps in the healthcare workforce, and finding ways to fight climate change. A few examples of what I learned:

 

• Healthy, Affordable Housing: Elevate Branson works with homeless individuals by providing job training, childcare, transportation, and other vital services to get them back on their feet. They have launched a new project to build a tiny home community that will house clients right next to their office, enabling easy access to their services.

 

• Health Care Workforce: Perry County Hospital has partnered with Mineral College to host clinical rotations for the College’s nursing students, with the goal that a portion of those students will continue to work at the hospital. Of last year’s 7 graduates, 6 stayed on as staff members.

 

• Climate and Health: The Dunn Ranch Prairie, owned and operated by the Nature Conservancy, has restored prairie lands in NW MO and shares their methods with area farmers and ranchers. These land stewardship practices create cleaner air and water for the surrounding communities. And I got up close and personal with the buffalo they trade with Indigenous communities in nearby states.

 

The possibility of partnering with organizations of this caliber buoyed our fundraising efforts. We participated in the Give STL Day campaign in May, joining thousands of St. Louis area nonprofits for a one-day giving blitz hosted by the St. Louis Community Foundation. We also started fundraising through individual donors and seeking out grants.

 

I’m grateful for the progress we’ve made and excited for everything 2024 will bring! I’ll end with another plug for our end-of-year giving campaign. When you support BMH, you’ll have even more to celebrate this holiday season.

 

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

Walt Disney