EQUITY IN ACTION 

Welcome to our 2024 Annual Report, an overview of our progress in the past year toward expanding access to just, equitable, and coordinated care that improves the lives of older Californians and their caregivers.

Archstone Foundation is dedicated to doing this work in ways that enhance justice, foster equity, promote diversity, and honor inclusion (JEDI). We want to ensure older adults receive high-quality health and social services, regardless of who they are or where they live. This commitment is central to our efforts and is more important than ever given the current challenges to JEDI efforts around the country.

We recognize that we can only achieve this vision together, in close collaboration with our grantees and partners, and we are grateful for the opportunity to do so. In the coming year, we will intensify our partnerships with organizations focused on increasing the availability of health and social services for people who have historically been and continue to be marginalized, live in rural areas and other places where such services are scarce, and are in communities challenged by entrenched poverty. Building ongoing, supportive relationships with these organizations and the people they serve fosters mutual trust, helps us understand what communities truly need, and enables us to co-develop pragmatic, sustainable solutions.

In practice, this means working closely with community partners, streamlining our grantmaking process, speaking out against ageism and all other forms of discrimination, and providing capacity building support to community-based organizations so they can be reimbursed for delivering new state benefits.

Spurring Change, Making Needed Connections

In all this work, Archstone Foundation has two important roles. We are catalysts, using grant awards, partnerships, and our voice to accelerate large-scale change and strengthen organizations to do their best work. And we are connectors, working with and linking a wide range of people and partners to promote integrated care and ensure older Californians — especially the most vulnerable — can find, use, and benefit from the programs they need.

This dual approach creates opportunities to work alongside our valued colleagues across the state and country and is manifest in several ways.

Archstone Foundation is attentive to – and deeply supportive of – major systems change efforts in California. The innovative Master Plan for Aging (MPA) and the transformation of Medi-Cal (the state’s Medicaid program) represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity for governments, advocates, funders, and nonprofits to create a system that comprehensively integrates health care and social services for older people. They serve as steps forward in the long journey to redress decades of inequitable treatment. If the effort succeeds, California’s system will serve as a model for the rest of the nation because the challenges of inequitable and siloed care in our state persist in cities, suburbs, and rural areas across the country.

Our contributions to this multi-faceted effort continue to grow. In 2021, we were one of eight foundations supporting development of the initial MPA, and we have renewed our contribution to a pooled fund of philanthropic support for it. Today, Heather Young, former chair and member of our Board of Directors, serves on the California Aging & Disability Research Partnership (CADRP) workgroup, and Foundation staff members serve on the Stakeholder Advisory Committee, the Research Subcommittee, and the CADRP workgroup.

Integrating Medical and Social Care

We know integrating medical and social care produces better outcomes for older people, their caregivers, and loved ones, but it is not easy to achieve. The silos separating health care and social services have been high and thick – and funded separately – minimizing incentives for providers to work together. A substantial influx of state, federal, and philanthropic funding, however, has created important opportunities for progress.

For example, Medi-Cal, through its comprehensive reform effort CalAIM, created two new benefits to fund coordinated care for those with the most complex medical and social needs, including many older adults. With Foundation support, California Health Policy Strategies is leading a Statewide Dementia Care Learning Collaborative to support community-based organizations delivering CalAIM-funded care.

On the federal level, the Foundation played an active role in encouraging California health providers to apply to participate in the new GUIDE (Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience) model, developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This program, which embodies many of the principles the Foundation supports, focuses on delivering comprehensive, coordinated dementia care.

Facilitating cooperation among all the players needed to create coordinated care is crucial. The Foundation is part of the California Medicare Collaborative, which also includes state government, the California Quality Collaborative, The SCAN Foundation, and West Health. This collaborative is in the middle of an intense, year-long effort to find and prioritize ways to effectively move the needle on improving care for Medicare beneficiaries during the next two years.

While we engage with policymakers, funders, and advocates on these efforts, we recognize that some community-based providers do not have the infrastructure in place to participate in such opportunities. We remain committed to providing support through our annual capacity building grants program and our partnership with Catchafire, a platform that matches nonprofits with pro bono consultants, through which more than 100 organizations have been able to strengthen their operations or make the most of CalAIM, Department of Aging, and other funding streams.

For almost four decades, Archstone Foundation has been singularly focused on improving policies and services to better the lives of older Californians and their caregivers. By continuing to connect people and organizations and catalyze the field more broadly, we are well-positioned to be an essential agent for unprecedented and positive change in the years ahead.

Below we feature the MPA and three grants that showcase the impact of our partners’ work and how we are building a better future together.

We hope you will join us in championing equitable care for all.

Cynthia D. Banks | Board Chair
John Feather, PhD | Interim President & CEO

Cultural Competency Training Helps Ensure Equitable Services for LGBTQ+ Older Californians

SAGE used a Foundation grant to align its goals with the MPA to ensure that SAGECare’s LGBTQ+ aging cultural competency training program, the National Resource Center on LGBTQ+ Aging, and the Long-Term Care Equality Index contribute to the state’s efforts to make California a place where LGBTQ+ older people have access to culturally competent services and supports wherever and however they live. As the nation’s oldest and largest LGBTQ+ aging care provider, SAGE has the expertise and ability to make sure older LGBTQ+ Californians receive the best possible person-centered care that considers their unique needs and concerns.

In Their Words

"Many individuals shared how your presentation has deepened their understanding of the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community and ignited a greater commitment to creating change."

- California Office of the State Long-Term Care Ombudsman trainer

Creating Effective Teams is Essential for Effective Service Delivery

Via Care’s organizational capacity has grown to provide an integrated care coordination model to serve low-income Spanish-speaking older adults in East Los Angeles with multiple chronic medical issues and social supportive needs. With Foundation funding, Via Care’s Integration Team developed the policies, procedures, and workflows required to implement a pilot team-based care model that reflects changes to Medi-Cal eligibility and other benefits related to its new Enhanced Care Management program. Via Care’s new system also includes internal referrals for pharmacy, behavioral health, dentistry, HIV/viral hepatitis, and transgender health care services, as well as outside referrals. This is what the Foundation envisions for coordinated care: a place where older adults and their families can access providers in their community who not only speak their language but also take the time to provide high-quality, cost-effective care.

In Their Words

"I like the 'Senior Saturdays' where I can come in for my appointment with the doctor and not feel rushed to ask my questions. I can receive my medication at one location and also talk with one of the Via Care staff about exercise programs, gas and electric bill discounts, meal deliveries, and more. You can see how the staff care for my health and overall well-being."

- Via Care service recipient

Building Capacity Creates Equitable Access to Care

Visión y Compromiso is a leading organization in the training of promotores and community health workers who provide critical coordination and advocacy for older adults and their families in primarily Latino communities. Using a Foundation capacity building grant, the Los Angeles organization was able to bring on a billing expert to help it access more than $3 million in reimbursements, allowing it to sustain its work helping people in the community navigate complex health and social service systems.

In Their Words

"The lasting benefit of this project is that we will have a Case Management Platform that is adaptable to our unique workforce to support our work, capture data, bill sustainably, and activate closed-loop referrals. The grant money we have secured and leveraged using Archstone Foundation funding has substantially elevated the work we do to provide holistic, well-coordinated community supports to older Latinos in California."

- Visión y Compromiso leader