New York City, April 4, 2023 — Echoing Green and the Deloitte* Health Equity Institute (DHEI) announced their new collaboration to convene, incubate, and support entrepreneurs invested in health equity. DHEI will provide funding and thought leadership as one of the lead collaborators of Echoing Green’s Racial Equity Philanthropic Fund. The Fund is focused on finding and supporting emerging and established innovators of color working to address some of the most pressing social issues of our time.
For over 35 years Echoing Green has supported leaders who tackle intersecting global issues, including health equity, in 86 countries, through its fellowship program. “Our ability to identify and develop proximate change leaders, combined with the experience and reach of Deloitte through its Health Equity Institute, will enable us to deliver significant opportunities for the most innovative entrepreneurs in health equity,” said Echoing Green President Cheryl L. Dorsey. “Our collaboration is a proving ground for future works between our two organizations.”
Deloitte Health Equity Institute catalyzes action across sectors to address structural disparities and flaws in the health system. “We believe that health equity is the fair and just opportunity for everyone to fulfill their human potential in all aspects of health and well-being, but factors such as race, gender, ability, class status, and even zip code can perpetuate inequities. By teaming with Echoing Green to support bold leaders who have innovative and scalable ideas to improve health in our nation, we can expand our impact to help create a truly equitable society and overcome systemic barriers impacting healthy outcomes for all,” stated Dr. Jay Bhatt, Managing Director of the Deloitte Health Equity Institute and Center for Health Solutions.
This collaboration is part of Deloitte’s social impact investment aimed at advancing equity and will provide a continuum of support to early-stage leaders and established health equity entrepreneurs. To find and resource equity leaders early and expand access to social innovation, Echoing Green and DHEI are delivering programming and learning opportunities for college students, emerging professionals, and aspiring social entrepreneurs interested in health equity.
Another component of the Echoing Green and DHEI collaboration includes funding Black, Indigenous, and other leaders of color to establish enterprises that help bring solutions to the health equity sphere. This spring, three Echoing Green Fellow founders will receive follow-on funding underwritten through this collaboration to support their work:
- Lorenzo Lewis, founder of The Confess Project
- Oluwatoyin Ayanfodun, founder of Tomorrow’s Leaders NYC
- Sarah Hemminger, founder of Thread, Inc.
In addition to supporting health equity leaders, Echoing Green and DHEI will work with corporate leaders so they can turn their passion and skills into actions that contribute to the missions of frontline leaders.
Scaled impact and sustainability are cornerstones of the Echoing Green and DHEI collaboration. Both organizations want to scale their impact by applying lessons learned from working with the social innovation ecosystem to advance health equity in all forms and build a coalition of collaborators to drive this impact.
About Echoing Green:
For over 35 years, Echoing Green has been on the front lines of solving the world’s biggest problems, raising up the transformational leaders willing to speak truth to power and challenge the status quo. The organization finds emerging leaders with the best ideas for social innovation as early as possible and sets them on a path to lifelong impact. Echoing Green’s community of nearly 1,000 social innovators includes past Fellows such as First Lady Michelle Obama and the founders of Teach For America, Center for Black Innovation, BlocPower, and One Acre Fund. Built and refined over three decades, Echoing Green discovers tomorrow’s leaders today, and then funds, connects, and supports a new generation of social impact leaders.
About the Deloitte Health Equity Institute:
Recognizing the imperative for immediate and sustained effort, and grounded in Deloitte’s acknowledgment of racism as a public health crisis, Deloitte established the Deloitte Health Equity Institute (DHEI) in spring 2021. DHEI’s mission is advancing health equity to make an impact that matters by creating cross-sector collaborations and tools aimed at addressing disparities in the drivers of health, racism and bias and structural flaws in the health system. Each of DHEI’s initiatives aims to help create a world in which health isn’t determined by race, gender, ability status, or zip code – a world in which everyone has the fair and just opportunity to achieve their full potential in all aspects of health and well-being.
*Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of their legal structure.
