The Medtronic Foundation’s partnership with HealthFinders Collaborative exemplifies this approach to corporate philanthropy. HealthFinders is a community health center focused on marginalized families in Rice County, Minnesota — an area that includes sizable Latino and Somali populations.

Charlie Mandile, executive director at HealthFinders, said the link-up with the Medtronic Foundation has been key to keeping focused on driving long-term health outcomes and aiding the integration of CHWs. “This philosophy has really helped us go out into the community where health is happening,” he said. Illustrating this, HealthFinders has seen a doubling in its reach of patients with diabetes and high blood pressure — and a 10% increase in diabetes patients meeting treatment targets.

HealthFinders embraces the power of CHWs as trusted liaisons between underserved patients and the health system. This commitment to health workers only makes the partnership with the Medtronic Foundation stronger, especially during the COVID-19 response when meaningful investments in CHWs are more important than ever.

Ultimately, organizations need to select partners intentionally and scale these relationships to collaboratively advocate for real results that matter most to us all, Bhatt said. “It’s ensuring that, in the health space, we’re delivering on better outcomes over a period of time for the underserved and are sourcing partners that want to take that journey together with us.”

Philanthropic organizations need strong selection and management tools to enable the best fit for this style of partnership. The Medtronic Foundation uses a framework, adapted from impact investing, that includes selection criteria to assess the potential social and financial impact of an organization.