Though only a few years old, Alliance grantee Foundation for a Healthy North Dakota (FHND) is making a big impact on the health of young children and their families in the state. During their most recent legislative session, the small but tireless organization supported key players with policy wins on expanded eligibility for free school lunches, new investments in child care, and Medicaid child eligibility expansion—in addition to playing a lead role in defeating proposed legislation that would dangerously curtail vaccination levels in the state.
While FHND might sound like an advocacy organization with a lot of fight, its success is actually built on community connections and trust. “We travel the state to meet all kinds of people in communities big and small,” says Sandy Tibke, the founder and Executive Director of FHND, “and it’s clear that they unanimously want healthy children and healthy communities that can thrive and prosper. Our approach is to meet them where they are at, listen, share information, answer questions, and then trust them to advocate for what they want for their communities.”
This approach is building a growing constituency for strong health policy in the state, while also informing legislators about their voters’ values and priorities. FHND, for example, began filming local “community health conversations” across the state.
“We began collecting all these amazing, genuine community voices,” she says. “A pastor in western North Dakota, a tribal advocate in Bismarck, a chiropractor in Fargo—and they really started to reset the conversation.”
In one of FHND’s community conversations, Dr. Amy Kempfer shares her beliefs about community health and vaccines.
Today, Tibke and her team host wellness-focused community events, webinars, health fairs, and have even created a free vaccination online learning community for North Dakotans to connect and learn with other North Dakotans.
FHND helps legislators with information on the policies that impact doulas and community health workers. And they compile quarterly tracking of wellness vaccine uptake, children’s hunger, and other data–so policymakers and other community leaders can see how the state is really doing.
As North Dakota convenes its 2025 legislative session to set policy for the next two years, FHND continues to connect the people and policymakers in the state, so leaders can hear what the families want and need.
And, ultimately, act on it.
