.Grounded on reviews of previous work and from listening to those doing the work, the initiative incorporates elements from multiple frameworks and approaches, including but not limited to: antiracism, distributed leadership, equitable evaluation, liberatory consciousness, power-building, and trust-based philanthropy.

Six value-driven aims guide

EQUIP NJ’s mission, vision, priorities, and decisions:

Together, these frameworks informed the six value-driven aims that guide the initiative: aligning power, amplifying community, centering health & restoration, embodying equity, nurturing relationships, and strengthening the ecosystem. These will be front and center in every decision the initiative makes and are set to ensure the initiative stays accountable to the field and to the work. Through this work, we are challenging existing power structures and piloting new ways of decision-making in philanthropy.

Through our listening sessions, the field elevated different opportunities to strengthen the ecosystem. In alignment with what we heard, EQUIP will strengthen organizational ecosystems in New Jersey by:

1. Building capacity of organizations to advocate for programs, policies, and practices that perpetuate health equity.
2. Cultivating relationships among and between organizations and sectors advocating for programs, policies, and practices that perpetuate health equity.
3. Developing leaders’ capabilities to advocate for programs, policies, and practices that perpetuate health equity, across roles, levels, and within a team-based structure.
4. Supporting healing justice work that will help mitigate and heal harms that come from advocating for programs, policies, and practices that perpetuate health.
5. Funding policy-specific efforts to advocate for programs, policies, and practices that perpetuate health equity.

HOW EQUIP CAME TO BE

In 2023, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released a set of policy priorities aimed at advancing health equity in New Jersey. While these priorities were developed in collaboration with some community partners, RWJF engaged a group of consultants to continue listening to organizations to uncover specific needs that would help advance the policy agenda. The purpose of these conversations was to inform the design of this initiative, grounded in the RWJF policy priorities, with the aim of advancing health equity in New Jersey.

Conversations revealed that the field was looking for investment in long-term infrastructure building and racial justice that could create a strong and resilient ecosystem of organizations to advance equitable policies. Thus, EQUIP pivoted to respond to the field's feedback.

EQUIP continues to evolve as it listens to the community, engages new stakeholders, and distributes resources to the field.