Community, people are focus of Bethany Legacy Foundation’s six-year plan
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A relatively young nonprofit health foundation is looking to bolster health outcomes in Jefferson County.
Bethany Legacy Foundation, founded in 2022 after King’s Daughters’ Health joined Louisville-based Norton Healthcare, has launched a six-year strategic plan with the goal of creating “a sustainable community where individuals of all ages can access the necessary resources and services to thrive.”
The plan, known as Legacy 2030, will provide grants to support projects that fit into two primary categories: Community and People.
CEO Dora Anim told Inside INdiana Business the plan takes a more proactive approach to addressing community issues.
“Given how young we are, we have awarded grants on an annual basis—on a more reactive basis—to get to know the community, to understand the issues,” Anim said. “We’ve conducted a lot of research through conversations to understand what success looks like for individuals. Through all of that information, we have formed our six-year plan because we feel like given that we’re three years old, we’re now at a point where we should create a multiyear runway towards a healthier county.”
Anim said the foundation wants to break the cycle of dependency among its residents and create solutions that lead to greater self reliance. The community and people focus areas, she said, will help accomplish that goal.
“Our community focus is around a thriving workforce,” she said. “The elements of a thriving workforce are quality housing, child care, professional development and then recreation—places where we can live, work and play with our children and our families, places that product basically promote physical activity.”
The people focus is centered on ensuring the community has strong youth, empowered adults and stable seniors, according to Anim.
“We have an approach that looks at folks through the cycle of life, and through that, we’re focused on mental health, transportation and social services primarily that empower individuals,” she said.
Mental health is among the top priorities for the foundation, as Anim said Jefferson County is a mental health desert. She said the foundation is interested in establishing a residential facility for mental health and substance use disorder treatment, possibly through a partnership with Jeffersonville-based LifeSpring Health Systems.
She said the foundation is also exploring a partnership with Ivy Tech Community College and Louisville-based Family Scholar House to support students with a variety of social services.
Through the Legacy 2030 plan, Anim said the foundation will be able to gather more data on the issues facing the community that will lead to more projects to better serve residents.
“It’s important for us is not to impose a lot of red tape and bureaucracy by saying, ‘You need these to measure these 10 things,'” she said. “So we’re creating a more fluid approach to say, ‘What can you measure? What are you already measuring? What does success look like within your agency?’ And that will help us formulate the impact plan.”
Grant applications are now open. You can find more information by clicking here.