Innovator Insights: Dr. Yanique Redwood, President and CEO, Consumer Health Foundation
As the President and CEO of the Consumer Health Foundation (CHF), Yanique Redwood is responsible for the strategic, programmatic, financial and administrative operations. She joined the Washington D.C. based CHF team in 2012 as its second President and CEO. Prior to joining CHF, Yanique worked for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, where she managed the health and mental health portfolio of grants and the evaluation of Evidence2Success. She also provided leadership for the Race, Class, and Culture Committee of the Evidence-Based Practice Team.
Additionally, Yanique worked for the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and directed a community-based participatory research initiative in Atlanta funded by the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health. In 2012, she was named a Terrance Keenan Institute Emerging Leader in Health Philanthropy by Grantmakers in Health and in 2016, she was named a Business Alliance for Local Living Economies fellow. She was elected to the Board of Directors of the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers in 2013. Yanique has degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology (B.S.) and University of Michigan School of Public Health (Ph.D., M.P.H.). Throughout her training and career, she has focused on addressing the social determinants of health including racial equity.
II: What lived experiences guided you to this work and allow you to show up to it in the way that you do?
YR: I didn’t know I was Black until I moved to this country; I’m from Jamaica. At about eleven years old, I was old enough to understand that we were Black people, and there were White people, and there was something negative about being Black. That was my first understanding of race.
We were a middle class family in Jamaica, and in Jamaica there are problems with race, but it’s more colorism. The lighter you are, the better you are, and so I knew we were doing okay. We were doing better than some people, people who tended to be darker skinned than us, but not as good as some of the people who were lighter skinned than us. I knew there was something going on but it wasn’t until I got here and my father was working that I began to understand class. He was an accountant in Jamaica but then he became a taxi cab driver here. He was throwing newspapers;he was really struggling to find work. My mom was working really low wage jobs answering phones. I started to understand some differences as it related to class.
I remember when I was on hall patrol (in school), there was a kid that came up to me crying and saying that another kid called him a Jamaican. It was right when I got to this country and I was like, “Okay, he’s crying. He’s saying another kid called him a Jamaican, so obviously it’s a bad term.” I’m Jamaican. It was all starting to come together that there was something wrong with being Black, something wrong with being an immigrant or Jamaican, and something wrong with being poor. Those kinds of experiences coming from one country to another really started to shape the social issues that I began to really think about. Later, I learned about the Tuskegee Syphilis study and that was the confirmation that I needed to begin doing something different with my career.
II: How have health care practices and policies affected people of color and their livelihoods over time?
YR: Even though CHF works on health care, we think about health much more broadly. While we have a health care portfolio, we also have a portfolio that’s focused on economic justice. We believe that people need safe and affordable housing, access to good food, to be able to live in neighborhoods that are safe, and jobs that allow for a living wage in order to be healthy. We don’t believe that we can simply talk about health care.
Even then, there are some very significant challenges with our healthcare system. Right now, just think about all the debate just trying to get people access. People need access to health care, but they’re getting access to a system that is still very discriminatory.
Look at the research comparing how whites and Blacks get treated when they get into the system. There are several studies. Doctors will, on average, provide different treatment options for Black people versus white people. And Black people will get less of what they’re supposed to get than white people.
We’re fighting for people to have access to more health care, but that access is to a system that’s hurting us and still has the remnants of institutional racism in it. As a result, we have poorer health outcomes. It’s pervasive. It’s not just on the healthcare side, it’s all throughout our society. Sometimes I don’t even know how we make it given how much there is stacked against us.
II: How do redlining and displacement affect the health and overall well-being of those they are impacting? When you displace one or many families, what does that do? What does it do to community?
YR: Mindy T. Fullilove, a professor at Columbia and a psychiatrist, has a book called Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It, and she talks about the trauma of displacement. It’s not just, “you’ve been displaced this one time, but over and over again.”
For example, imagine a neighborhood that stops receiving investment and then the property values start to drop. This is typically where people of color live.The land becomes so cheap over time and then developers start to stake it out and cities will say “we’ll sell this for a dollar. Literally, we’ll sell you this for a dollar.” So developers come in, do what they do, buy cheap, sell high. On top of all of that, people have seen roads and highways built right through their neighborhoods.
Displacement starts to happen; families get fractured and there’s trauma that is never accounted for. It would almost be okay if you experienced one trauma, but it’s trauma after trauma after trauma your whole life, and your parents’ lives, and your grandparents’ lives, and we’re not accounting for that. When we make our policies, we don’t account for that historical trauma.
II: What does grantmaking paired with trauma-informed approach look like or consist of for communities of color who’ve been historically disenfranchised?
YR: Here’s what I think has happened as it relates to philanthropy. In the United States, we’ve had this system of racism starting with slavery. And we know this history, Jim Crow, Redlining, different starting points for Black people versus white people in terms of working for pay, which has led to very different trajectories for Whites as a population and Blacks as a population and now Latinos and other communities of color.. As you think about all of that piled on over time, those very different sets of life experiences, the effects can’t help but show up in nonprofits. Nonprofits led by people of color have lower budgets and fewer resources, which creates this kind of difference in capacity between white-led organizations and organizations led by people of color. And then philanthropy can say, “we can’t fund you because you don’t have capacity.”
We in philanthropy have to do something different or else we’re continuing to recreate those different trajectories. It’s about acknowledging this history of racism and saying “we’re going to invest to fix this.” To fix it, to undo it, to turn it around, whatever you want to call it. To me, philanthropy is in the best position to do that work because we have so much freedom to really do that type of acknowledgement and that investment.
II: How effective is philanthropy at investing in and supporting disenfranchised communities?
YR: I think the critique might be, in general, we’re not doing such a great job. However, I think there are some opportunities. Since the Black Lives Matter movement took off, there has been increased momentum around these issues and it has created an opening that was not there before. For me, I’m much more bold in what I talk about than I was before. I feel like I have permission now. I feel much more empowered now to talk about the truth as I see it.
There is also a group of funders in D.C. who have gone through a series called “Putting Racism on the Table.” It’s a six-part series for CEOs of foundations and trustees to learn about racism. It’s been phenomenal. Out of that a working group has formed. There are 20 plus members who are committed to figuring out what philanthropy’s response is in terms of advancing racial equity. While in general we haven’t done a very good job, there are some openings for philanthropy to do something different. I’m seeing it locally in D.C. CHF has been alone on these issues for a long time. To have other colleagues who are now committed and working together to try to figure out our role makes me really, really hopeful.
II: How would you say philanthropy can tackle disrupting this system?
YR: We have to begin asking our grantee partners, regardless of whether the organization is people of color-led or white-led, to demonstrate that what they’re doing is advancing racial equity. It’s from a very practical standpoint to begin using tools like a racial equity impact assessment tool to enable organizations to demonstrate that what they are working on, whether its advocacy or something else, isn’t hurting but instead advancing racial equity for people of color.
I would also recommend an organizational assessment tool to help an organization figure out if [the organization] still has racist practices. Is it paying attention to issues of diversity? Is it paying attention to issues of equity inside of the organization? Not what it does outside, but how it handles itself inside: Who is [the organization] purchasing from, who are [the] vendors, who sits on [their] boards, who do [they] hire? All of these internal practices need to be analyzed because this country is built on this foundation of racism and that means every organization has a taste of it and has to be working actively to undo it.
II: How does the Consumer Health Foundation self-assess and measure success and impact?
YR: We have a set of diversity and equity indicators to monitor how we’re doing as it relates to equity internally. It asks us to assess our board composition. We have to have one of the most diverse boards in this region and in the country! We use a diversity matrix to annually monitor our board composition. We also look at staffing, our procurement , and who is responding to our RFPs.
The measuring of success and impact is a little tricky. We have moved away from traditional success markers and impact markers like “did a policy change?” or “did a group of advocates win something?” We still ask those questions, but we’re more interested now in how advocates are working together and how advocates are using a racial equity lens. We care more about whether advocates have community members at the table, whether advocates are including community members voices in their work, and how they’re sharing resources with each other. We care more about how the field of advocates is working versus, “did you do this one thing?”
We want our grantee partners to use a racial equity lens, so we have provided trainings on how to apply a racial equity lens to their advocacy. It’s not just winning a policy, but determining if that policy will advance equity for people of color. If we were really asking questions about the history of racism in this country, we might come up with different policies–we might, but we’re not even asking those questions. I feel people are ashamed of that past and don’t want to go back there and so, are unknowingly or knowingly perpetuating the same inequities. Our foundation is interested in getting people to go back to stop the cycles of inequity.
II: Washington D.C. is one of the most inequitable places in the country where the top fifth of earners make $259K on average and the bottom fifth earn only $9K. This type of economic segregation also occurs in Baltimore. How does that impact your work and how can foundations help cities like D.C. and Baltimore come to grips with and address the situation? How is CHF’s endowment currently being invested to do so?
YR: Our foundation has had a history of impact investing. We deployed two impact investments about 15 years ago and they just returned the principal to us. Fifteen years ago that thinking was new, and we were trying to figure out how to do it. In December of last year, we approved a carve out of our endowment and have since made three investments. We really want to target them this time in some of the areas that we may not fund, but believe are going to help address some of these inequities.
The first one is an impact investment related to affordable housing. The second is an investment in entrepreneurship, especially among women and people of color. It’s pretty clear that many people of color are locked out of the traditional job system, whether it’s because of something like a name or a background, and entrepreneurship is a way out of these kinds of income inequities.We want to invest our endowment in those kinds of opportunities so we do just that.
The final investment is a loan loss reserve. In the case, if there is some sort of default on a loan to an entrepreneur, the foundation has taken on that risk in order to make capital available to entrepreneurs of color who would not qualify for a regular bank loan. Those are some of the ways that we’re trying to address some of these socio-economic inequities even though we’re a small foundation.
II: What is needed for comprehensive systems change and what does getting to the root really mean? What does it look, sound, and feel like?
YR: This example has been on my mind a lot lately as we’ve released our RFP with the requirement to use the racial equity impact assessment tool. I remember meeting with someone who was telling me all about a program to help people of color in the district to save money in order to buy homes because there is a realization that people of color in this city are less likely to own a home. “Let’s help people save money. They need to learn budget[ing], financial literacy, how to put their money in accounts so they can save for a home.”
However, I have major problems with that strategy. If you’re serious about getting to the root of why people of color in this city and others like it are not homeowners at the rate that whites are, you must look at redlining. You cannot not look at things like deeds that limited the sale of homes to Black people. If you’re really serious, then you would have to have a completely different strategy. A strategy that might look like something like reparations.
A group of people were denied access to homes, while white Americans built wealth with their homes. Their homes increased in value, they were able to take out loans on those homes to do all kinds of things: pay for college for their kids, buy other homes, take out money to go to school for themselves, all kinds of opportunities. Then they were able to sell their homes, make a profit, give it to their kids and their kids gave it to their kids, and their grandkids and all this wealth just keeps building. If a group of people were denied that opportunity, then there would have to be something other than helping them learn how to save in order for them to now own a home.
On another note, who can afford to live in D.C. now? I just wrote a blog about this. I make decent money and I’m looking around like, okay, how would I afford to live here? Say there was an initiative that provided every resident who made say under $20K a year in D.C. a major down payment subsidy to buy a home as a part of renewal strategy. Where would they really be able to buy that home? There would have to be other regulations related to zoning in order to make sure that there were affordable homes available.
We have to be different and do more than just help people save money. Getting to the root requires some major strategies to match the scale of what has happened to people of color in this country. These programs sound good, but they are incremental. They really aren’t attacking the root. If we’re not talking about those things then what are we doing?
II: What do we need to begin to dissect differently?
YR: For many years, we’ve been talking about income; I was one of those people. How do we get people of color to have similar levels of income as our White counterparts? Research has opened up about wealth, and now we know that’s where true thriving lies. We’ve been talking about income for so long, yet whites, on average, are doing well because of wealth. I’m not talking about millions of dollars in your bank account, I’m talking about things like a $20,000 gift you got from your grandfather to be able to put a down payment on your house. Those forms of wealth are what allow people to thrive. Income is the survival piece, but to be able to start a business or buy a home or support your kids to accomplish their dreams; that’s what wealth allows for; that’s when the thriving really begins to happen. The income conversation is part of it, but this wealth piece, that’s where it is.
