Notice: The “conversation” of Advancing the Movement has now transitioned to the Community Commons and selected partners, click here for more detail.
This “ATM” is stocked with the distributed and renewable resource of voluntary energy, sweat equity and experience-based competence – contributed by scores of voluntary leaders, from dozens of organizations, and hundreds of communities across six stakeholder clusters: 1) place-based community initiatives across the nation; 2) public and private funders, and 3) their national program offices; 4) technical assistance providers; 5) advocacy groups; and 6) evaluators, scientific and academic partners.
Our Partners Include:

Community-Based Initiatives: Thousands of local and regional partnerships are now engaged on the Community Commons.
Funders: In-kind and technical support has come from scores of individuals and organizations around the nation. Early financial support for Advancing the Movement and The Commons was made possible by Kaiser Permanente, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ascension Health, the YMCA of the USA, The Convergence Partnership and IP3.
Technology, Communications, Social Networking, Evaluation and other Resources includes: Our primary partner for www.communitycommons.org is “IP3” – a consortium of the Center for Applied Research and Environmental Systems at the University of Missouri, Community Initiatives Network, and Transtria. Among others, we work closely with www.preventobesity.net and the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) including the Institute of Medicine and The National Institutes of Health.
An array of organizations, agencies, state and regional “convergences”, program offices, and technical assistance, policy and membership organizations including (but not limited to) the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Health and Human Services, the Surgeon General, The National League of Cities, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, The Partnership for a Healthier America, Trust for America’s Health, Let’s Move!, YUSA, ChangeLab Solutions, Prevention Institute, PolicyLink, Public Health Institute, Bipartisan Policy Center, Alliance for a Healthier Generation, President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, Place Matters, National Wildlife Federation, Safe Routes to School, National REACH Coalition, California Convergence, LiveWell Colorado, United Way Worldwide and many others.
Advisory Committee:

Chairs

James Krieger, MD, MPH

Jim Krieger, MD, MPH is chief of the Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention Section at Public Health – Seattle & King County, and Clinical Professor of Medicine and Health Services and Attending Physician at the University of Washington. During his 20 years of public health practice, Dr. Krieger has worked with multiple sectors to address health inequities and promote community health, including implementation and evaluation menu labeling in King County, contributing to the design and development of healthy public housing communities, reducing access to sugary beverages, and developing and evaluating community health worker interventions to address chronic disease. He has played a lead role in multi-sector community-based partnerships that address health inequities, including CPPW, REACH, Steps, Allies Against Asthma (RWJF) and Food and Fitness (Kellogg). He was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Childhood Obesity Action for Local Governments in 2008- 2009. He partners with NACCHO as founding chair of the Big Cities Chronic Disease Community of Practice that focuses on multi-sector policy actions to address healthy eating and active living.

Sarah Strunk, MHA

Sarah Strunk is Director of Active Living By Design and the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities National Program Office, part of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has been with ALBD since its inception, first serving as Deputy Director from 2002-2005. In this role, Strunk focuses on organizational development, strategic planning, business development, program development and the management of external partnerships.

She also serves on a variety of local and national boards and advisory committees, including the Alliance for Biking and Walking, Communities Creating Healthy Environments, and Girls on the Run of the Triangle.

Previously, Strunk was Director of External Affairs at the UNC Gillings School of Public Health. She also served as Director of Corporate Planning at BlueCross and BlueShield of North Carolina, and in strategic and business planning roles at Duke University Medical Center and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Strunk earned a Master of Healthcare Administration from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1991 and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Duke University in 1987.

Outside of the office, she enjoys running, cooking and doing volunteer work.

Advisory Committee Members

Marice Ashe, JD, MPH

Marice Ashe is the founder and director of Public Health Law & Policy (PHLP) – a nonprofit national technical assistance center offering public health leaders access to high quality legal and policy resources for public health campaigns related to both chronic and communicable disease control. PHLP is a multidisciplinary team of lawyers, urban planners, architects, and policy and communication specialists who incorporate Health in All Policy approaches to address core public health challenges. Marice is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, and received her MPH and JD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Clem Bezold, Ph.D.

Clement (Clem) Bezold is Chairman and Senior Futurist of the Institute for Alternative Futures. Bezold established IAF in 1977 and in 1982 started IAF’s for-profit subsidiary, Alternative Futures Associates, to assist corporations in their strategic planning using futures methods. He has been a major developer of foresight techniques, applying futures research and strategic planning methods in both the public and private sectors. As a consultant, Dr. Bezold has applied futures approaches, particularly scenarios and vision development, in his work with many Fortune 500 companies along with major organizations, including the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Rockefeller Foundation, AARP, the American Cancer Society, and the American Medical Association.

Bezold has published numerous books and reports on the future of government, the courts and healthcare. He is a consulting editor of the Journal of Futures Studies and is on the editorial or advisory boards of Technology Forecasting and Social Change, foresight, and World Future Review. Bezold received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Florida. He has been assistant director of the Center for Governmental Responsibility at the University of Florida Law School and a Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Vanessa Briggs, MBA, RD, LDN

Vanessa Briggs, MBA, RD, LDN is the Executive Director of the Health Promotion Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania (HPC), a regional public health non-profit organization focused on serving low income diverse communities to address health disparities. She joined HPC in 2001, after working 15 years in the for-profit healthcare industry. She is responsible for the overall organizational strategic direction. She is instrumental in growing HPC’s childhood and adult obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, programs and services. Ms Briggs has strong administrative skills and a passion for public health that brings a unique lens to the public health landscape. As such she recognizes that in order to effectively change health behaviors, a multi-prong approach must be taken and supported with solid business practices in order to eliminate health disparities.

A MBA, Health Administration graduate of Eastern University and a Registered Dietitian & Licensed Dietetic-Nutritionist, Ms. Briggs’ serves on the several national, regional and local executive committees, boards and consortiums.

Linda Jo Doctor

Linda Jo Doctor is a program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, she helps develop programming priorities, reviews and recommends proposals for funding, manages and monitors a portfolio of active grants, and designs and implements national grant initiatives, place-based work and multi-year projects.

As a member of the Food, Health & Well-Being team, her work focuses on the impact of environmental conditions on health equity. She co-leads the Food & Community Program, an initiative designed to transform food systems and the physical environments in places where children live, learn and play. In Michigan, Ms. Doctor co-leads the foundation’s placed-based work in Detroit and beyond, promoting educated, healthy and income secure children statewide.

Previously, Ms. Doctor was deputy director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Allies Against Asthma Program housed at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She also directed the Division of Prevention at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, where she provided leadership for statewide health promotion and prevention programs and interagency initiatives. She has worked in substance abuse prevention including managing a national training and technical assistance system supported by the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

Ms. Doctor received her master’s of public health degree from Boston University School of Public Health. She received her bachelor of science in social work from the University of Cincinnati, College of Community Services.

She has had leadership roles in several professional associations including the Prevention Network and the Association of State and Territorial Health Promotion Directors, and is a member of the American Public Health Association, and the Society of Public Health Education.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, established in 1930, supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in the United States, southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Tracy Fox, MPH, RD

Tracy Fox, President of Food, Nutrition & Policy Consultants, LLC has over 25 years of experience working in the federal government and the private sector, and has extensive experience in federal nutrition policy. Her clients include or have included the US Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Prevention and Control and the National Cancer Institute, non-profit organizations like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where she works on Federal policy issues, Action for Healthy Kids, Feeding America, Produce for Better Health Foundation, the National Food Service Management Institute and public relations firms, where she provides advice and consultation on policy and nutrition initiatives. Areas of expertise include child nutrition and school health, federal, state, and local nutrition policy, advocacy and government relations. She has served on numerous boards and committees including the Institute of Medicine front of pack, school foods and local actions to prevent childhood obesity committees. She is Past-President of the Society for Nutrition Education and is a retired Commander in the US Navy.

Lark Galloway-Gilliam, MPA

Lark Galloway-Gilliam is Executive Director of Community Health Councils, a Los Angeles-based health promotion, advocacy and policy organization dedicated to building healthy communities and the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities. Lark is an advocate for health and human rights, health equity, public accountability and quality healthcare for under-resourced communities.

Ms. Galloway-Gilliam has over twenty-five years of progressive responsibility in the field of non-profit management and public administration. She received her undergraduate education at UCLA and a Masters in Public Administration at USC. She is the chair of the National REACH Coalition and serves on a number of non-profit boards. She has dedicated her life to social justice.

Genoveva Islas-Hooker

Genoveva is the Regional Program Coordinator for the Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program (CCROPP). CCROPP addresses environmental and policy level factors that contribute to the escalating incidence of obesity in the Central California counties of Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare. Genoveva is a board member for the Latino Coalition for a Health California, a board member of the California Food Policy Advocates, a steering committee member for California Convergence and an advisory board member for various organizations Genoveva Islas was born in Fresno, California and grew up in small rural communities of the San Joaquin Valley, her parents were farm workers. She is the first in her family to attend and graduate from college. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Science with an emphasis in Community Health from California State University Fresno and received a Masters in Public Health degree in Health Education and Promotion from Loma Linda University.

Shiriki Kumanyika, PhD, MPH

Shiriki Kumanyika, PhD, MPH, is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology and the Department of Pediatrics (Nutrition Section) at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Kumanyika’s research focuses on identifying strategies for reducing health disparities in obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases. She is founder and chair of the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network (AACORN; www.aacorn.org), a national network devoted to improving the quality, quantity and effective translation of research related to food, physical activity, and weight issues in African American communities. Dr. Kumanyika chairs the Institute of Medicine Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention and is also co-chair of the London based International Obesity Task Force.

Tyler Norris, MDiv.

Tyler Norris, MDiv. is vice president, Total Health Partnerships at Kaiser Permanente, the leading integrated health system in the United States. He also serves as board chair of IP3, which powers the Community Commons and CHNA.org.

Tyler is a long-time social entrepreneur, and founder of over a dozen businesses and social ventures. His three decades of service in the public, private and non-profit sectors have focused on growing the impact of the healthy communities movement and has included work with over 350 communities and with scores of organizations in the US and around the world. Previously Tyler has served as founding CEO of Community Initiatives Inc.; founding co-chair of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s National Leadership Alliance; founding convener of “Advancing the Movement”, founding director of the national “Convergence Partnership” (a consortium of philanthropies, Kaiser Permanente, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), NAC chair of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Active Living by Design initiative; as a Fellow of Estes Park Institute and the Public Health Institute, and as head coach of the YMCA’s award-winning Pioneering Healthier Communities initiative.

Norris has a bachelor’s degree in international political economy from The Colorado College and a Master of Divinity from Naropa University. He is a parent of two teens, an avid walker, mountain biker, backcountry skier and pilot.

Kerri Peterson

Kerri R. Peterson graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Biology. She moved to Omaha and worked at Methodist Health System as a corporate recruiter. Earning her Masters Degree in Health Promotion with an emphasis in Human Resource Management, in 1996 Kerri began working for Live Well Omaha, a 47 member healthy community movement. Kerri has been responsible for guiding LWO’s role as a catalyst organization to make Omaha one of the healthiest cities in the United States. A Health Forum’s Creating a Healthier Communities Fellow, Kerri graduated from Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Omaha and Non-Profit Executive Leadership Institute

Mary A. Pittman, DrPH

Mary A. Pittman, DrPH, is chief executive officer and president of the Public Health Institute (PHI) in Oakland, California. A nationally recognized leader in improving community health, addressing health inequities among vulnerable populations and promoting quality of care, Pittman became in 2008 PHI’s second CEO and president since its founding in 1964. She has guided PHI to achieve greater impact on public policy and practice in public health both in the U.S. and globally. PHI’s areas of focus include: reducing childhood obesity and chronic disease; implementation of prevention in health reform; climate and public health; the social & health impacts of alcohol and other drugs; eliminating health inequities and building healthy, vibrant communities; advancing appropriate use of technology in health; increasing advocacy for improving the public’s health, and addressing health workforce shortages. Under her leadership, PHI has been recognized as one of the 50 best nonprofit workplaces in the nation.

Pittman previously headed the Health Research and Educational Trust, an affiliate of the American Hospital Association, and the California Association of Public Hospitals. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and master’s degrees from UC Berkeley in public health and city and regional planning.

Maren Stewart

As the first president and CEO of LiveWell Colorado, Ms. Stewart is responsible for building a non-profit organization committed to reducing obesity in Colorado through the promotion of healthy eating and active living efforts. In this role, she leads the execution of LiveWell Colorado’s strategic initiatives to advance policy, environmental and lifestyles changes aimed at increasing access to healthy opportunities for all Coloradoans.

Ms. Stewart currently serves on the board of directors for the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts and the executive committee of the Aurora Economic Development Council. In the past, Ms. Stewart served on the National Association of Children’s Hospitals council on child advocacy, as well as the board of directors for the Denver Metro Chamber Foundation, the Aurora Chamber, the Colorado Association of Nonprofit Organizations, the Donor Awareness Council and Colorado Bright Beginnings. She has received numerous gubernatorial appointments including the Advisory Committee on Covering All Children in Colorado, the Children’s Trust Fund, the Committee to Promote Adoption and the Tobacco Settlement Task Force and was invited to participate in a national effort to revamp pediatric residency programs with the American Board of Pediatrics Residency Review & Redesign Committee. Additionally, Ms. Stewart has served on numerous volunteer committees for various nonprofits, such as the Downtown Denver Partnership Awards Jury and several fundraising committees.

Ms. Stewart’s past experience includes a long tenure as Vice President of External Affairs for The Children’s Hospital in Denver as well as a partner in a Colorado public affairs/lobbying firm.

Ms. Stewart holds a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Kansas and a J.D. from the University of Denver. She is licensed to practice law in Colorado and is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America.

Monica Hobbs Vinluan, J.D.

Monica Hobbs Vinluan, J.D. (Director, Healthier Communities Initiatives, YMCA of the USA) joined the YMCA of the USA in 2007 to design, launch and execute various projects of Y-USA’s Healthier Communities Initiatives. She currently serves as Director for Healthier Communities Initiatives, which catalyze community and state level leadership teams to ensure that strategies and policies are in place that allow people to make healthy choices where they live, work, learn and play. Working in more than 240 communities, Y-USA’s Healthier Communities Initiatives are funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and other funders and include Pioneering Healthier Communities (PHC), Action Communities for Health, Innovation and Environmental Change (ACHIEVE), Statewide PHC, Community Transformation Grants, and Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH).

Monica serves as a strategic advisor to various Foundations and Boards and works with various coalitions advocating for physical activity, healthy eating, and health equity policy strategies. Before joining Y-USA, Monica was the Senior Policy Associate for Health and Wellness issues at the National Recreation and Park Association. She has served as a government relations professional on a variety of health and well-being issues for fourteen years and has been a professional advocate for health promotion issues for 18 years. Her experience includes working for a U.S. Senator, serving as a child and family advocate, a Regulatory Counsel for healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, and Legislative Counsel and lobbyist. She completed her Juris Doctorate at the American University Washington College of Law and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Virginia Tech. Her hobbies include playing with her family, volunteering in her children’s school and being outdoors.
We are grateful to the 100+ leaders (across community sites, funders, program offices, and TA, policy and evaluation organizations) who are investing their time and talents in this effort towards a healthy, equitable and sustainable nation.