FEDERAL D. GLOVER COMMUNITY WELLNESS NETWORK IMPACT REPORT
Discover the coalition of community organizations delivering culturally responsive care, support, and wellness services for African American families in Contra Costa County.
Serving African American families in Contra Costa County
A NEW ERA OF COMMUNITY WELLNESS
IN CONTRA COSTA
COUNTY
Federal D. Glover
Honoring a Legacy, Building a Future
Federal D. Glover served as a Contra Costa County Supervisor for more than two decades, representing Pittsburg and East County communities as the first African American elected to that office. His tenure was defined by a commitment to residents who had been historically overlooked by the institutions meant to serve them — recognizing that equity requires structural investment, sustained over time, for the people and places who need it most.
It is fitting that this network bears his name — not as a tribute alone, but as a charge. Supervisor Glover helped seed the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice, the county office now leading this initiative. From his leadership, to ORESJ's founding, and to the Glover Wellness Network — that thread of continuity reflects a community whose advocacy has been building for years in a county that proved what is possible through community partnerships.
In 2023, Contra Costa County made a historic, multi-million dollar commitment to meet the needs of Black residents who lacked access to critical health and wellness services. The Federal D. Glover Community Wellness Network, formerly the African American Holistic Resource and Wellness Hub, represents the county's most significant, coordinated investment in the health, healing, and well-being of the county’s Black residents and the most vulnerable groups among them. It is a bold, community-informed response to longstanding inequities and an emerging model for what county leaders believe in: listening deeply to constituents, investing with intention, and equity.
What follows in this report is the story of an innovative public-private partnership between Contra Costa County’s Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice (ORESJ), East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF) and 13 Black-led, community based service providers with roots in and passion for Black residents.
About This Report
This report is written from the perspective of the Glover Wellness Network itself — the organizations, leaders, and community members at the center of this work. It documents the impact of the $1 million pilot cohort: 13 organizations, one year of service, and the early evidence of what targeted, community-centered investment in equity and wellness can achieve. Through data, narrative, and the voices of those delivering services, who often come from impacted communities themselves, it showcases the Glover Wellness Network’s accomplishments throughout the first year, and what sustained investment can and will lead to for Contra Costa County communities.
The $1 million seed investment is the foundation — not the finish line. The full vision of the Glover Wellness Network is still taking shape. This report is one chapter in a longer story — and an invitation to help write what comes next.
Note: ORESJ identified inequities facing the county’s Black residents in coordination with Contra Costa Health, the county’s integrated health department and healthcare system. ORESJ established the Glover Wellness Network Priority Census Tracts, a combination of five zip codes (94801, 94509, 94804, 94805, 94565) and 12 census tracts representing underserved populations in North Richmond, Antioch, Pittsburg and Richmond. Data referenced throughout the report can be accessed using Contra Costa Health’s public Health Atlas, atlas.cchealth.org, in the form of maps, charts, tables and more.
IMPACT OF THE GLOVER WELLNESS NETWORK
CITIES & COMMUNITIES REACHED
Pittsburg
Antioch
Richmond
Bay Point
Concord
Martinez
Oakley
Brentwood
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KEY IMPACT
PILLARS AND
OUTCOMES
MATERNAL & INFANT HEALTH
In the Glover Wellness Network Priority Census Tracts, mothers and infants experience illness and death from preventable conditions at more than twice the county rate. This disparity reflects a perinatal care landscape where Black birthing people have long lacked access to culturally concordant providers. Before community organizations stepped in, Black women certified in perinatal mental health were nearly absent from the entire Bay Area—and once families left the hospital, there was no consistent community-based support for lactation, mental health, or basic navigation. The Black-led organizations working to close these gaps do so without the sustained investment their systemic role demands.
"As a parent, it felt affirming to be surrounded by other families who get it. The resources, conversations and support made this feel intentional and healing."
— Back-to-School event participant, via Black Girls Mental Health Foundation
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
For Black, brown, and low-income communities within the Glover Wellness Network Priority Census Tracts, the barriers to mental health care are structural and systemic. The uninsured rate among the census tracts is more than double the county average, and nearly 4 in 10 residents live below 200% of the poverty line — conditions that make accessing care challenging. The mental health workforce has not kept pace with the county's growing diversity, leaving communities of color with providers who do not share their lived experience. For aspiring therapists of color, the path to licensure presents its own barrier, requiring thousands of supervised hours that few local sites offer with pay, forcing many out of the pipeline before they can complete it. When crises do occur, the default response is too often a 911 call rather than a behavioral health intervention, escalating situations and increasing criminalization risk. Mental health challenges in these communities compound housing instability, food insecurity, and employment barriers that siloed systems are not designed to address together.
"We are so happy you guys are out here giving us crisis resources. We shouldn't have to call the cops for everything."
— Community event participant, via The Healing Spot Counseling Center
FOOD & HOUSING INSECURITY
Decades of disinvestment have left the Glover Wellness Network Priority Census Tracts without reliable access to fresh food or economic opportunity. Residents in low income neighborhoods lose years of life to cardiovascular disease at a rate nearly 70% higher than the county average, and die from those causes at nearly twice the county rate. These are not individual health failures but predictable outcomes of neighborhoods where corner stores and fast food have replaced grocery stores and community gardens as primary food access points. More than half of renters in these communities are rent-burdened. More than 1 in 4 face a severe housing cost burden, leaving little room to absorb the added cost of nutritious food, transportation, or stability.
"The food support helped our family make it through the month."
— The Black Neighborhood participant
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
Just 68% of residents in the Glover Wellness Network Priority Census Tracts hold a high school diploma, compared to 90% county-wide. College graduation tells an even starker story: 13% compared to 45% county-wide. These gaps reflect what happens when young people — disproportionately Black boys and young men — are shaped more by the justice system than stable mentorship and community support. The young people furthest from opportunity are often concentrated in the same neighborhoods, with the least access to culturally- grounded services and adults who share their lived experience. Without consistent, trust-based relationships and support for emotional literacy and healthy family dynamics, the conditions that push young people toward crisis go unaddressed and the cycle continues. Reversing this trajectory requires showing up early, staying consistently present, and building the types of relational infrastructures that systems are not designed to provide.
1 Hundred Year Enterprise
1 Hundred Year Enterprise served 271 total participants, and 142 Black participants (52% of total), across juvenile hall units in Martinez, community mentorship in Richmond, Bay Point, Pittsburg, and Antioch, and school-based programming at Sylvester Greenwood Academy in Richmond. Reported Outcomes: Recognition of criminal behavior as an addictive cycle Reduced recidivism Goal attainment in education, employment, and behavioral health Probation compliance Improved attitudes toward peers and positive role models Conflict resolution without escalation Behavioral incident reduction Improved attitudes toward positive role models
Genesis Church (Youth Trauma Healing)
(Youth Trauma Healing) served 265 Black participants (100% of total) across 7 youth trauma healing group cycles in Antioch. Reported Outcomes: Significant reduction in behavioral issues at school and at home Increased student confidence and self-efficacy Strong program engagement — students recommending groups to peers and expressing interest in furthering their education
Served 477 total participants, and 225 Black participants (47% of total), through mentorship sessions, study halls, and parent engagement sessions. Reported Outcomes: 87% of students responded favorably to sense of belonging survey items (515 out of 590) Increased family engagement
"My mentor didn't just tell me to change — he showed me what change looks like because he lived it."
— Youth participant, Central County via 1 Hundred Year Enterprise
COMMUNITY HEALING
The California Healthy Places Index ranks the Glover Wellness Network Priority Census Tracts at the third percentile statewide — meaning 97% of California communities have greater access to the conditions that make healthy living possible. That single number captures what the data across every pillar of this report reflects: these are not neighborhoods experiencing isolated problems but communities carrying the compounded weight of generational disinvestment, displacement, and harmful contact with the systems meant to serve residents. Healing requires more than access to services, it requires rebuilding trust and creating conditions for collective movement in neighborhoods that have absorbed the greatest harm. The organizations doing this work are critical to reaching this goal. Sustaining these efforts is a structural necessity, not a philanthropic choice.
STORIES OF IMPACT
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Lactation can provide life-saving, preventative nutrients to Black babies, but lower rates in the community limit the education, exposure, and practice of breastfeeding. Under the leadership of Brandi Gates Burgess, Breast Friends’ culturally-centered services remove stigma and elevate community care.
Breast Friends Lactation Support Services
Black Girls Mental Health Foundation
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As the dire need for Black maternal health rises, a new service provider emerges as a culturally-inclusive foundation that trains up the Black birth network and aids Black mothers’ mental health from second trimester to three years postpartum.
The Healing Spot Counseling Center, Inc.
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Community-based healing means meeting people where they are, and The Healing Spot ensures their vast patient network is serviced through unorthodox measures such as transportation and crisis management, all while training the diverse therapy experts clients deserve.
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1Hundred Years Enterprise
A group of formerly incarcerated Black men return to their neighborhoods to offer various mentorship programs, reroute at-risk youth, and eliminate “early death decisions.”
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Healthy Hearts Institute
Urban farming serves as the engine behind Healthy Heart Institute’s mission to heal, protect and strengthen the neighborhood to its healthiest conditions while eradicating the harmful food deserts plaguing The Bay Area.
A Community-Informed Response
Naming Unmet Needs
For years, Black residents across Contra Costa County — in Richmond, North Richmond, Pittsburg, and Antioch — named the same unmet needs: access to culturally responsive mental health care, support for mothers and infants, safe spaces for youth, and community-centered healing that honored their lived experience. The concerns they identified represent longstanding realities, lived daily by thousands of families and documented across decades of public health data.
Community Accountability
In 2023, an incident that exposed racist and sexist misconduct within the Antioch and Pittsburg Police Departments prompted action by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. An intense community advocacy effort followed. Advocates, faith leaders, and service organizations came forward and expressed a clear need for healing and sustained support for impacted African American residents. The county responded with a clear plan for beginning to systematically tackle the barriers these residents faced to accessing critical county services.
Investing in Solutions
Beginning in December 2023, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors directed a series of investments totaling approximately $9.1 million toward establishing a countywide infrastructure for Black wellness. That commitment set in motion a process grounded in community wisdom, a feasibility study that gathered input from more than 4,000 residents across 16 listening sessions and eight district town halls. The findings were clear and illuminated a path forward for action. What emerged was not just a program — it was a vision, plan, and ultimately a network.
A Network Built on
CommunityTrust
The Federal D. Glover Community Wellness Network is built on a foundational truth that the county's own listening process confirmed: the organizations already embedded in Black communities — the ones with the relationships, trust, and cultural fluency — are often the most effective vehicles for delivering care and support. By partnering with the organizations already working to provide critical resources to the communities who need them most, public systems deploy services quickly and with more efficiency.
The network of 13 Black-led, community-based organizations were brought together to deliver services across five pillars: maternal and infant health, behavioral health, food and housing security, youth development, and community healing. The inaugural cohort of organizations were identified because they were already providing services in the neighborhoods, faith spaces, and community centers where Black families are. Through the Glover Wellness Network, these organizations are supporting the development of a countywide wellness ecosystem designed to expand with each year of sustained investment.
The Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice (ORESJ) led the pilot year of the initiative in partnership with the East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF) — a public-private collaboration rooted in intentionality and strategy. County resources bring scale, stability, and institutional reach. Philanthropic partnership brings flexibility, capacity-building expertise, and the ability to resource grassroots organizations whose community impact exceeds what traditional government contracting processes are designed to recognize. Together, they are building a coordinated, countywide wellness infrastructure rooted in Black leadership and responsive to Black communities.
— Kendra Carr,
Co-Director, Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice
Capacity Building: Investing Beyond the Grant
Sustaining a network of community-based organizations and service providers requires more than funding — it requires investing in the infrastructure of the organizations. Recognizing this, ORESJ and EBCF consulted their department and organizational budgets, adding an additional $60,000 to fund capacity-building support for Glover Wellness Network grantees. An early cohort survey identified fundraising as a top need, and what followed was the Liberatory Fundraising Labs, a three-part workshop series facilitated by Kia Croom Fundraising & Philanthropy. The series equipped grantee leaders with practical tools for measuring impact, communicating their work to funders, and strengthening their fundraising requests. Each organization also received up to five hours of individualized technical assistance, covering fundraising strategy, proposal review, and reporting support. The results were clear: 75% of participants reported a significant improvement in their understanding of fundraising strategy. Another survey found 75% reported feeling confident applying those lessons to their organizations.
Through EBCF's partnership with Candid, the leading source of nonprofit data and insights in the United States, grantees participated in two virtual sessions introducing Candid's tools and resources for nonprofits.
The sessions covered how organizations can use Candid's platform to research funding opportunities, strengthen their organizational profiles and access data tools that support impact tracking and measurement — practical resources that directly extend the fundraising and evaluation work begun in the Liberatory Fundraising Labs.
In parallel, ORESJ and EBCF partnered with Mancala Collective, a strategic communications firm, to conduct in-depth stakeholder interviews and develop this impact report, and to offer grantees up to five additional hours of communications technical assistance, including messaging strategy, social media guidance, impact storytelling and media readiness support. The series concluded with a celebration honoring the cohort's progress. This investment in organizational infrastructure reflects what ORESJ and EBCF have consistently shown throughout the network's first year: resourcing the people who do the work is as important as resourcing the work itself.
"What we've heard consistently from community-based organizations — especially those that are emerging and growing — is that they need access and more resources. They need the infrastructure, the capacity, and the support to sustain their work long-term. That's what we're building here."
— Peter Kim, Co-Director, Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice
LESSONS
FROM YEAR
ONE
The first year of the Glover Wellness Network delivered real impact and real lessons. Thirteen organizations reached tens of thousands of residents across Contra Costa County, building trust and delivering services in communities that have long gone underserved. That work also revealed, with clarity, what it will take to scale and sustain it.
Public-Private Partnership: Administering the Network
EBCF's role as fiscal intermediary was foundational to the network's success. Advance payments, faster turnarounds, and less rigid audit and insurance requirements removed barriers of traditional county contracting processes, making it possible for grassroots organizations to participate. EBCF's culturally responsive grant management practices, deep relationships in Black communities, and aligned values meant grantees were supported by a partner that understood their work. ORESJ staff could not have coordinated nor maintained the cohort, hosted capacity-building sessions and conducted site visits without EBCF anchoring that infrastructure. This partnership underscores the importance of having an intermediary organization anchor the network.
Black-Led Organizations Need Pathways, Not Just Funding
The organizations in this network are uniquely positioned to do this work. They have the community trust, cultural fluency, and proximity to the people they serve that outside providers can’t replicate. They are also operating with fewer resources, less infrastructure, and more administrative burden than the larger organizations county systems are accustomed to funding. Year one made clear that, in addition to providing funding resources, the county must invest in organizational capacity building. Specific structural changes are needed:
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Procurement reform: Contracting processes must be made more accessible to smaller, Black-led organizations. Current requirements create barriers that exclude organizations best positioned to serve Glover Network Priority Census Tract communities.
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Flexible infrastructure funding: In addition to program delivery, organizations need resources for technology, facilities, grant writing, and general operations.
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Differentiated capacity support: Emerging organizations and established ones have different needs. Investment strategies should reflect that distinction with more intensive training, technical assistance, and infrastructure development directed toward smaller, grassroots organizations that have less operational runway.
-Jasmine Jones, Lead Consultant, East Bay Community Foundation
$1 Million Plants the Seed, But That Seed Must Be Watered
For some organizations, the $1 million seed investment accelerated programs already in motion, deepening their reach and sharpening their impact. For others, it unlocked additional funding, serving as proof of concept that attracting new funding sources help scale work that otherwise would not have had the resources to grow. That is a meaningful return on a first-year investment, and worth naming clearly.
It is also not enough to sustain what has been built, and county leaders and stakeholders should not expect that it would be. The fact that ORESJ and EBCF had to identify an additional $60,000 outside the original grant to fund basic capacity-building support tells its own story: the organizations in this network are delivering outsized impact with undersized infrastructure. Asking them to maintain that pace – let alone expand it – , without commensurate investment in future years is not a reasonable expectation.
Improving Data Collection
Consistent, network-wide data collection was a challenge in year one. Without shared metrics, standardized reporting tools, and more frequent data intervals established at the outset, it is difficult to tell the full story of collective impact. Resident feedback, tracked systematically across the cohort, would add a dimension of accountability and community voice that the network is committed to building. The path forward includes:
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Shared metrics of success across the network for a defined period of time
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Centralized standard reporting tools supplied to organizations on the front end
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Efficient and routine reporting tools
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Feedback mechanisms for residents who receive services
The Work Ahead: Building a Network That Stands Together
Year one established the infrastructure. Year two and beyond must deepen it. That means investing in what holds a network together: referral pathways between organizations, relationship-building across regions and cohorts, and the coordination capacity to ensure collaboration. The Glover Wellness Network is not 13 organizations doing parallel work. It is, and must increasingly become, a connected ecosystem in which organizations share resources, route clients to the right services, and strengthen one another's capacity over time. Building that ecosystem requires an intentional investment in coordination, not just providing programs.
This $1 million is one part of the county's broader $8.9 million commitment to Black wellness infrastructure — a commitment that also includes additional direct grants to community organizations, the acquisition of a physical home for network operations, and resources to sustain an implementation partner over time. That fuller investment reflects the county's recognition that lasting change requires more than programs; it requires permanent infrastructure. And yet, even $8.9 million, deployed over time across a county of this size and need, represents a beginning. Changing health outcomes for Black residents at a population level will require a multi-sector partnership sustained over years with county government, philanthropy, health systems, community organizations and other stakeholders, not a single funding cycle. The Glover Wellness Network is the foundation for that partnership. What gets built on it depends on the commitments that follow.