Our Background: RCHN Foundation

our background

Formed in 2005, the RCHN Community Health Foundation (RCHN CHF) is a not-for-profit operating foundation whose mission is to support and benefit the work of community health centers (CHCs) nationally. RCHN CHF is the only Foundation in the country devoted exclusively to CHCs - the local, non-profit, community-governed health care providers that offer comprehensive primary and preventive care to underserved populations.

Starting in the late 1960s with two community-based clinics, the community health center program has evolved into over 1,100 centers serving more than 16 million people at 6,000 delivery sites in the nation's poorest urban and rural communities. CHCs play a crucial role in the health care delivery system, providing a strong network of accessible, high quality services.

RCHN CHF is led by Julio Bellber, a nationally renowned leader of the health center movement. The Foundation grew out of the New York City-based network developed and led by Bellber consisting of a multi-site community health center, management services organization and managed care plan. The sale of the plan provided the opportunity for substantial investment in the broader CHC community. Founded in October 2005, RCHN CHF builds on a 40-year track record of success and commitment to accessible, high quality community-based health care services for vulnerable populations.

RCHN CHF focuses on initiatives to drive positive sustainable change for the community health center market. The Foundation concentrates its work in three areas that are of critical importance to community health centers and their patients: health care access, affordable prescription drugs, and health information technology. Through strategic investments and partnerships in research, education and advocacy, RCHN CHF is helping to address community health centers' primary challenges and establish opportunities to sustain CHCs in the future.

The Foundation's current projects and initiatives include:

A strategic partnership with NACHC affiliates, Community Health Advocates and Community Health Ventures, to further the development of business opportunities and initiatives for CHCs;
A $2 million gift to the Geiger Gibson program in Community Health Policy of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. The gift established the Geiger Gibson / RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative, the purpose of which is to advance understanding of health centers and their communities through policy research and scholarship.
A collaborative project documenting the living history of CHCs. Community health centers play a crucial role in today’s health care delivery system as the largest primary health care system for low income and medically underserved persons,and a key source of highly quality, accessible and high quality care. CHroniCles will document the vibrant, varied, and important history of every community health center in the country, as well as the health center movement as a whole. Every health center story is unique. By providing health centers a portal to tell their own stories, CHroniCles will celebrate - through written and oral histories, historic documents, photographs and other media - the special history of the health center movement and the vital role community health centers fulfill in American health care.

Geiger Gibson Program: A health-center focused initiative within The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

A membership organization representing community health centers and dedicated to expanding access to health care.

An affiliate of NACHC, CHV offers products and services to meet the specific needs of CHCs.