Listening, Learning, and Doing in 2024

When our DASH team looks back at 2024, we see three interwoven themes: intentionality, relationship, and co-design. These themes surface as a direct result of the collaborative work we do with our funders and awardees. We recognize that our community of partners add great value and meaning to our work—and for that we are grateful.

As the DASH program office takes a look back at 2024, we feel honored and lucky to work among caring partners—awardees, funders, and coworkers—committed to learning and doing. We’ve found that some interrelated themes have emerged from the projects we’ve undertaken this year in collaboration with ourpartners: intentionality as a key stance, relationship as a key orientation, and co-design as a key dynamic.

Intentionality

To be intentional about something means to do it deliberately and with a purpose. What does this mean in the context of equity-centered public health?

Organizations that are in positions of power relative to a community can inadvertently inflict damage. To support community health, an organization must first get clear on the Whys and Hows of the community—not just demographics and needs, but its rich, living context and strengths, perspectives, and hopes. Equally important, the organization must get clear on its own Whys and Hows: Why is this work important and how do we know that? Who have we talked with about this work? What interactions are taking place? Who are we hearing back from about it? This is what intentionality means to us. 

At DASH, we aspire to model intentionality. Prior to launching the Incubator last year, we took careful stock of planned guidelines and guardrails for its implementation, using the DASH Framework and years of learnings from our work and the works of others. The Incubator currently supports eight collaborations in co-designing equitable data ecosystems based on a foundation of shared trust, shared vision, and shared power.

Relationship

It’s important to remember that intent, the word at the root of “intentionality,” does not equal impact. No matter how intentional you are, it’s essential to assess the impact of your efforts and make any adjustments needed. 

This process is far more effective and meaningful between parties who are in relationship with each other. It’s true that we are Data Across Sectors for Health (DASH), not Relationships Across Sectors for Health (RASH?). But, while data is absolutely a crucial tool for collaborative work, our partners find, over and over, that the building and stewarding of relationships commands the majority of their efforts. Let’s say an organization wishes to strengthen community input, or they made an error and need to make amends among community, or they lack expertise in an area a nearby service organization focuses on, or they need data held by a different institution. Imagine the difference between reaching out about these needs as a trusted partner versus as a near-unknown.

This theme has emerged in our role providing technical assistance for public health organizations who received data modernization grants as part of the CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG). The assistance requested of us has a technical component, to be sure. But it is very often rooted in a relationship or partnership need. 

It takes a while to build relationships, and it can feel like not much is happening. The development of mutual understanding and trust is not linear nor responsive to check-box tabulations. DASH is a founding member of the All In: Data for Community Health network, a coalition of organizations and practitioners invested in advancing health through multisector data sharing. In the past, All In has hosted convenings and other events, but the group has transformed into a monthly virtual space where organizations engaged in bringing together practitioners and policy can connect, share, and build on their work, and find opportunities for collaboration.

This new position has felt a bit disorienting to us at times. Where’s the splash? What’s the news? How do we show our work? But this year we’ve re-learned, again, to trust. All In participants need and enjoy the space to gather. And recently, when DASH dove in to start exploring some new-to-us programming themes, our All In colleagues gladly offered support, connections, and know-how.

Co-design

Thoughtful intention + stewarded relationship = opportunities for authentic engagement. One of the manners of engagement we have seen and heard a lot about this year, both due to our own initiatives and in convenings, discussions, and learning opportunities, is co-design. Communities do not need to be told what they need in order to thrive—they already know, if only they would be consulted.

Co-design is a core tenet of asset-based community development (ABCD), which we examined in a four-part webinar series presented this past spring and summer in partnership with DePaul University’s ABCD Institute. Co-design has been a central tenet of the Incubator initiative as well—the discussions about compensation and roles mentioned earlier were co-drafted with the community members. One DASH colleague has mentioned,

Having been on the receiving end of situations where outsiders come into a community without truly listening to community members, it’s been fulfilling to see how deliberate the organizations are about avoiding that extractive approach and co-designing solutions with their communities.

Part of our co-design work has been in the realm of the actual grantmaking process: for submissions we disseminated a Request for Information form rather than a traditional application; for deliverables we developed a plan alongside the awardees; and for support we included peer-to-peer discussions, mentorships, and general funds free of ties to specific material outputs. We are grateful to our Incubator awardees for pursuing the contours of grantmaking co-design with us by trusting us to trust them, by taking on co-decision making, and by foregoing the types of typically imposed “hoops” that, while restrictive, can also be reassuring. We expect these contours will shape future programming as well, and are excited to explore grantmaking equity with funders and awardees alike.

Our vision for 2025 and beyond

One of our staff notes:

It’s clear that our DASH awardees, partners, and peers understand why the concept of building partnerships and trust is important…and it's also clear that putting it into practice is difficult.

All of these themes—acting from a stance of intentionality, orienting toward relationship, and inviting co-design—take time and trust. There is no other way to achieve responsive design. We hope that we model these elements in working toward our vision for equitable data ecosystems and systems change.

We could not do this important work without the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, whose support embodies deep understanding of not only the urgency of health equity, but of the time and space needed for systemic change. We are excited to bring our learnings, our partnerships, and our gratitude into 2025.