Investing in the social and economic wellbeing of the communities we serve through everyday business practices.
Anchor institutions are healthcare systems, universities, government agencies, and other nonprofit organizations that are ‘rooted’ in their communities. In other words, these are organizations that are committed to staying in the community and want to give back to improve the health and wellbeing of their neighbors.
Fairview is one of Minnesota’s largest employers and a large-scale purchaser of goods and services. In addition, we make regional financial investments and engage with our local communities. Our organization is intentionally leveraging our everyday business practices to build community wealth, support our local economies, and address social risk factors that contribute to poor health.
Anchor Initiatives
Our healthcare system is investing in the social and economic wellbeing of the communities we serve to achieve health equity. Our focus is on:
Community Health Investing
We are investing organizational and philanthropic resources to address community health needs.
Impact: Fairview is committed to addressing community health needs through these investments.
Inclusive, Local Hiring and Talent Development
We are building diverse hiring pipelines that create opportunities for Fairview employment and career advancement.
Impact: We will improve employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention through effective training and career pathways; develop stronger community connections to build a reputation of trust; gain efficiencies in recruitment and training; and develop a workforce that reflects the communities we serve.
Inclusive, Sustainable, and Local Purchasing
Fairview is focusing its everyday spending on supporting diverse and local businesses and uplifting the community.
Impact: We are creating socioeconomic impact by leveraging our supply chain to connect women-owned/minority-owned/veteran-owned, local, and sustainable vendors to contracting opportunities within Fairview.
Serving and Leading Locally
Fairview is partnering with local organizations to achieve our shared goals in support of community building.
Impact: We are developing trusting relationships with community stakeholders, as well as forming a responsive internal infrastructure, to build effective partnerships to improve community health equity and vitality.
Why is our anchor initiative important?
Health doesn’t start and stop at the doors of our hospitals and clinics. Many factors — called the social determinants of health — have an influence on our health such as our job, income, housing stability, food access, and education. Fairview is committed to addressing as many of these root causes of poor health as possible.
Through our anchor approach, we are specifically addressing socioeconomic factors of the social determinants of health. Our organization leverages our everyday business practices to promote community wealth building and address disparities. Here are some of the ways we are already doing that:
- As a one of Minnesota’s largest employers, Fairview hires employees, provides additional training, and promotes from within.
- Employee benefits include tuition reimbursement, encouraging employees to further their education or get training for another role in healthcare.
- As a purchaser of goods and services, we buy from diverse and local businesses to bring increased wealth to our neighbors.
- We use our purchasing power to intentionally select products and services that will impact climate mitigation and sustainability practices when possible.