Funding Your Healthcare Vision

Episode 138: Positioning Your Health Practice for 6-Figure Grants & Contracts (Part 1): Clarifying the Mission

February 22, 2023 Dr. Omolara Thomas Uwemedimo
Funding Your Healthcare Vision
Episode 138: Positioning Your Health Practice for 6-Figure Grants & Contracts (Part 1): Clarifying the Mission
Show Notes Transcript

Welcome back! There are no words that can express how excited we are for your response to the new Funding Your Healthcare Vision podcast. 

We’re incredibly excited about and dedicated to our mission of assisting healthcare practice owners and healthcare organizations to create partnerships that earn hundreds of thousands in funding and allow them to expand upon the urgent and incredibly necessary health equity initiatives that cater to the under-served people, families, and children in our communities. 

In today’s episode of the Funding Your Healthcare Vision podcast Dr. Omolara is going do a deep dive into the strategies that can position your healthcare for 6-figure grants and contracts. And, the heart of this episode has to do with clarifying the mission of your work and how that can help connect you to institutions that pay you to leverage your expertise or your practice or organization’s unique form of care for very specific populations.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • How positioning your practice can lead you to lucrative funding partnerships that can help you fund your startup and growth phases
  • How cultivate a strategy to determine what type of institutions are perfect for your health care practice or oragnization to collaborate with 
  • How to prepare your practice for collaborations and set your practice up for increased amounts of funding
  • How to get clarity and create the opportunities that will allow you to address health care problems in not only in local underserved communities, but national ones

…and much more!


This is another episode chock full of information, so be sure to take notes and reach out to us with any questions you may have.

Find the show notes at: https://bit.ly/episodefourshownotes


Read the transcript for this episode at: https://bit.ly/episodefourtranscript


Send Dr. Omolara a voice message at the link below, whether you have a question about funding a mission-driven health practice or a response to this episode. She'll answer your question on air!

Send a voice message: https://melaninandmedicine.co/messages


FREE WEBINAR: The 5-Keys to Help Mission-Driven Health Practices Bring in $500k in Grants & Contracts Every Year : https://bit.ly/fivekeysforfundingwebinar 


Submit an intake form: https://bit.ly/mmpracticeintakeform


Resources:
bit.ly/melaninandmedicine


Our website: melaninandmedicine.co



Links mentioned in this episode: 


https://hippocratichosts.com/


Shoutouts, comments, and questions:


https://www.instagram.com/cookingonpurposehealth/


https://www.instagram.com/theperioddoctor/


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Dr. Omolara: . [00:00:00] If you know that you have a specific way that when patients of a certain demographic or have gone through a certain experience or patients have a certain condition when you know that your practice does something very special in order to help them achieve health outcomes and you aren't getting to. areas of other organizations that have those people, so you can get that out to them as well. That's a disservice.

Is your practice positioned to collaborate with a school or with a church, or with a. Immigration law practice? If you wanted to capture those patients. And, what that is doing is… it's just streamlining access to services and streamlining the process so that there aren't people who are now falling through the cracks. So, for example, a collaboration. When we can [00:01:00] identify in our practices, a population that is under-resourced, neglected, or disadvantaged within the grand scheme of who you serve, and you've identified that some of the things that you do in your practice actually are uniquely helpful for that population, that becomes something that you're doing a disservice if you keep it to yourself.

You're doing a disservice if you keep it to yourself

[00:02:00] 

Dr. Omolara: Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to the funding Your Healthcare Vision podcast. I am very, very excited. I'm on a high right now it's been a few weeks that we have been back and I've been getting my bearings for the podcast again. I was an avid podcaster, some of you already know for a few years, and we took a break, before we start, I wanna say [00:03:00] thank you. Okay. Because y'all are showing up and showing out and sharing this podcast.

I wanna give special shout outs because there are people who have messaged me in dms and on Instagram or on LinkedIn. and we are super excited because of our Voice messages platforms, so melanin and medicine.co/messages where people can leave voice messages. That's so awesome. So first and foremost, I wanna thank Dr.

Shayla Natty, who is on Instagram at Cooking on Purpose Health. I wanna thank you for reaching out and also just sharing how much you're loving the podcast. That really helps me. I, that helps me tremendously , because I don't know if many of you know, but as a podcaster, you sit here, you talk about things, you're like, is this helping anyone?

And just getting those messages. So please send them out. And, I wanna thank Dr. Cherice Chambers at [00:04:00] The Period Doctor for shouting us out as well on her platform and also just sending such a loving message to us about how our work is… is supporting her too. So, thank you all. I'm looking for more. Okay. I'm, I'm gonna take it all. So please do not be, do not be shy. Please share with us. We look at everything and we wanna shout you out too, so that people know the amazing work that you are doing. So, the other housekeeping that I have is the Hippocratic Host podcast. So I was Invited to the Hippocratic Host podcast to talk about my coaching experience, but also social entrepreneurship and it was fun and so I want you guys to go check it out.

It was their season finale. It felt so important. So make sure you go to wherever podcasts are being streamed. Go to Hippocratic, h i p p o c r a t i C. Yep. [00:05:00] I'm good at spelling Host podcast. 

First and foremost, we're gonna be talking about how do we really position the practice? Now that we know about bridge funding, permanent funding, we know about the sources for finding funding on your own versus using funding partner. 

Dr. Omolara: I will have to say that for our practice our practices, I should say, at Strong Children Wellness, we have utilized funding partnerships. It's just been a lot easier for us.

And, also it just gives us access to funds that have, been helpful for the startup and growth phase, just to ensure that, we do have autonomy in our business and we don't have debt. And so that has been what we've chosen. it's been so successful for us.

To date, we have about a million dollars in grants and contracts over the past two years of the. [00:06:00] The practices that we, that we've built we want to make sure that that is shared , you know, in terms of how we do that and how we utilize funding partnerships. And I wanna talk about the five things that are extremely important, but I'm not gonna talk about all of them at once because that would be a really long podcast.

And I know you guys are busy, so I want to make sure that we go through each one. You can really sit with it, solidify. do the homework like I always tell you to . Okay, so I am excited because today we're going to break it down. not only as a, a practice a healthcare network owner, right, with multiple practices also as a consultant for the many women and organizations that we work with to support them in their funding journey.

it is so important for us to make sure we have a framework and a strategy [00:07:00] on how we approach the partnerships. So if you have listened to all of the three initial episodes, then you've probably come to some conclusion on what makes sense for you right now. And there is no right do it this way, answer, but I wanted to go deeper.

The part two of finding funding sources, which is around funding partnerships. And share a little bit about how we really decided, you know not really decided, but really what are the things that we had to do about our practice to make sure that it was ready and also able to successfully receive grant funding.

We can talk about logistics. I will get to logistics, but the first thing is actually really about the structure of how we were presenting it and also how we thought about its future. Okay? And this is why I love funding so [00:08:00] much because. , it forces you as an organization or as an entrepreneur. Cuz you know, we serve both of y'all.

We serve large nonprofit healthcare organizations like FQHCs or community health centers. And then we also do coaching for mission driven healthcare practice owners who are, you know, in their growth phase and really es establishing and moving forward. So for both of those leaders and founders, , what's really important is taking what it is that you have and now trying to find what is it the, the secret sauce in there?

How is this going to support other people? Right? the first thing out of the five things that we're gonna talk about over the next few weeks, the first thing that is really important for you to do to position your practice in order to receive grants that are, 150 $200,000 grants to come [00:09:00] into your practice is the mission. the mission. Okay? And so we're gonna talk about the mission, and it's not about like, I have a mission statement, , which you should have a mission statement for your practice or for your organization. what is the social problem that is leading to the health inequities for the specific population that you created your practice to serve.

 people often hear about this model of working with nonprofits to be able to reach our target population more and then access and build our revenue and access grant funds to help fund the work. However, first and foremost before we talk about the mission, I want us to change the definition for what a healthcare practice is.

Dr. Omolara: We already have a ton of data, okay? Now that clinical care only contributes to about 20% of health outcomes. You will hear me state that [00:10:00] from the rooftops, which is why I became so passionate about social determinants of health. And so that means that the rest of what we do, the rest of the health outcomes that we have, are attributed.

what is in our social environment and the behaviors that we undertake. And so when we think about that, we are doing a disservice by limiting our practices, especially organizations who have deep ties in the community as well as practices that are coming up and growing to just focus on how we can provide clinical care to this person.

 in order to expand our revenue possibilities, we actually need to expand. The service ideas, the service lines of our practices, of our organizations. And that doesn't mean different departments and specialties , that that is a part of it. That's good. We'll get to that part.

Dr. Omolara: You know, the of being more robust in the model of care. We'll [00:11:00] get to that. Okay. But it really is about how do we, As practice owners, and practice leaders. , how do we say what are the different ways in my practice that I have really enacted change? Okay. And this is gonna come from your patients, your community members, about what was it during the encounter?

Was it looking in their mouth or was it sitting down and educating them about something? Community health education is one of the service lines that we can really think about how you can extend and expand your practice to be able to make sure that we have a number of potential opportunities for grant funding.

And so community health education, is your practice able to support. the community. Are they, are you able to provide using your, your, your clinicians using your staff are you [00:12:00] able to deliver certain educational topics to the community or to the clientele of specific nonprofit organizations?

Okay. Who are your target population? The second thing I always think about, , are you able to do trainings? And these trainings are. Very much about specific health education and services that your staff, that the staff of other organizations can employ. So for example I was working with a headstart and asthma was a huge issue, right?

And so what we wanted to do, Was trained, the teachers at that early childhood center as well as the family health workers about how they could support their families. In terms of one, if there was an asthma attack that happened inside of the classroom, but also how they could make sure their classrooms were more asthma friendly.

Right. And, and training them so that they now were [00:13:00] able to really be a part of supporting health. for the child outside of them, just like pushing them out to us , right after they were exposed to this place that potentially might trigger them. Or if they had someone, how could we employ them with the information that they could bring to the parents so that we were extending that information and not just.

us as clinicians being in the channel, but that their teachers, their health workers and other community health workers and other people in the, in the ecosystem of that family, were able to distribute the same messages. So I want you to think about your practice and are there opportunities to do that?

Is that something that's even aligned with your practice? I think that's gonna be extremely, extremely. I. . The next thing that I want you to also think about as well is. collaborating. And what that collaboration looks like for your [00:14:00] practice. Could be with, I would always defer to non-health organizations.

 I just told you that the social determinants, housing, food, legal, employment, all of those things, education are, are gonna contribute more to health outcomes. , one of the the great things that I think has been helpful for us in terms of the model that we've created, and talking about how you have to position, how your model of care is going to position you for better grant funding.

 I think it's so important for you all to make sure. You are not, how can I say, creating silos that we already now have. don't work, . Don't work for the betterment and the health of the populations who we wanna serve. is your practice positioned to collaborate with a school or with a church, or with a. Immigration law practice, If you wanted to capture those [00:15:00] patients. And what that is doing is it's just streamlining access to services and streamlining the process so that there aren't people who are now falling through the cracks because they haven't been able to connect. So one of the things that we, for example, are doing with our practice is being able to have, you know, a collaboration.

Dr. Omolara: with a housing a, a housing nonprofit. And so what that allows us to do is really to identify if that issue comes up, we don't have to kind of go on the phone and like, you know, oh my goodness, how long, what we, we can actually send them. to people who really have the resources and the nonprofit who can do that work in a much higher way and, and achieve that outcome for that family so that they can, you know, have all of the benefits in their health that are possible.

And so these are important things that I just want you to think about with your practice or your [00:16:00] organization. Are we limit. The scope of what we do, are we limiting the fact that we could also consult right to help other organizations improve their health services in the specific area, or that we actually dominate or that we do well with?

So for example, our bread and butter are psychosocially complex and medically complex kids. So if there are other larger organizations or nonprofits who are serving those patients, we could consult about how you could. , and this is with health organizations, consult with them about how they could strengthen their services, right themselves, or you know, if they decide to find, fine contract us and you can send your patients to us, but it's just important for us to really think big, okay, we got big missions, so we gotta think big.

So, that segue is to the mission part of this and. [00:17:00] When we describe our practices, oftentimes what we describe is we usually focus on what the practices do, the services, okay, that they provide in order to get grants and contracts and through partnerships and introducing your your practice. I want you to talk.

The clarity has to be around the why. Why does the practice exist? Not what does the practice do. And what I mean by that is this is what's going to draw people in one of the initial documents that we help people, like the assets that we help people create in Melanin & Medicine. It includes something called a Statement of Need.

And, what that allows us to do is to position the practice in both the national arena and then their local arena about this is the problem that is happening to the community nationally, [00:18:00] and this is the problem that's happening to our community and how it looks in our locality. And this is the gap.

No other practice or very few practices are able to achieve, or very few organizations are able to achieve, and this is where we shine, This is where, this is the mission. So what I say is, What is the problem that you are solving for what population? Okay. This does not mean that your practice solely focuses on that, but it, what we're doing is we're positioning our practices to find a service or a offer basically that we, an opportunity.

I'd like to say that we are bringing to other organizations that serve a specific target population that we also. . However, that organization usually provides complimentary services, so they're not providing exactly the same thing that we're providing. And what we wanna do is we wanna position the practices to enlighten other [00:19:00] organizations about this problem among the population that they actually are.

Serving, but they may not see it because they're focusing on a specific other sector. Right? And so we are bringing this opportunity to say, Hey, you know, those immigrant populations that you're serving, you know those black women that you're serving, you know those youth, L G B T youth that you're serving?

There's this problem that exists that you may not either be aware of or you may not have the resources to potentially provide, and it's our mission to help. Them get to this certain level and we know the power of your services and we'd like to let you know about the mission that we have and why this is such an issue for them, and how our service is able to, to support that issue that either you've seen but couldn't do anything about or you don't even know is when we can identify in our practices, and it [00:20:00] doesn't have to be the whole population, a population that is under-resourced, neglected, or disadvantaged within the grand scheme of who you serve, and you've identified that some of the things that you do in your practice actually are uniquely helpful for that population, that becomes something that you're doing a disservice if you keep it to yourself.

Dr. Omolara: You're doing a disservice if you keep it to yourself. If. Know that you have a specific way that when patients of a certain demographic or of a certain have gone through a certain experience or patients that you know, have a certain condition when you know that your practice does something very special in order to help them achieve health outcomes and you aren't getting to.

Areas of other organizations that have those people, so you can get that out [00:21:00] to them as well. That's a disservice. I'm gonna be very honest, , and I want you to look at this as not, oh my gosh, I'm, I'm, you're not begging for money. You honestly are trying to increase the reach of something that you either has come from the work that you've done before, for those of you who ha are founding practices or, or those of you who are leading it, stuff that you've seen, the, the actual outcomes and you've been like, this is, this has been amazing for this population that oftentimes, is talked about as not having, you know, good healthcare or having disparities in, in health.

And so I want you to take that further. And so remember, this is not about what you do. It's about why you do it. We provide OBGYN servic.e We provide pediatric services. to Children who have asthma and aren't able to prevent that and are in the ERs [00:22:00] multiple times. And our practice actually has formulated a way that those populations, those asthmatic kids can stay out of the hospital.

And, I noticed that you as a nonprofit are providing community health workers and providing education about asthma, I'd like to see if we could partner and think about, you know, what are the ways that we can support each other to ensure that the, given what you do and what I do to really ensure that these children have the best, the best outcomes.

 That is kind of how I see you saying even if you're a pediatric practice that serves all. , you've seen this certain population and you've seen that what you are able to do or you've seen, maybe even if the practice is newer and you haven't had that track record, you know what you bring from your expertise outside of that practice, maybe from your prior job.

Dr. Omolara: And you are able to [00:23:00] say, I have experience with these kids and this is how we format the. The work. This is what is needed and this is how we're going to solve it. So when we do that, it allows for us to now have this open opportunity to bring our services and to have people say, I wanna bring you on. I wanna contract you, or I want to I wanna present this service to and can you, you know, share a little bit about it. And that's, those are the assets that we help people create. Also finding who these organizations are, making sure that you're going to an organization that's actually like, , you know, well funded so that they have the capacity to be able to bring you on.

These are all nuances that sometimes can take a little bit of digging and, and that's why we are really excited to help women so that they can make this a lot easier. We also help men, we also help healthcare organizations, but just making. that you [00:24:00] have the best chance is really about not going as a typical traditional practice because y'all ain't typical and traditional.

You all are mission-driven health practices. So the mission has to be tight. I want you to now take some homework. Some homework to do, which, , look at your organization or look at your practice and start to map out what are the different underserved, neglected, or disadvantaged populations that you either are serving right now.

You have the capacities to serve. What are those populations? Which of those populations are you seeing a great response? Or if you are transitioning, which of those popul. Have you really worked with very well? for me it's always been I've taken care of every patient, but I've noticed that my immigrant patients really love the way that we support them.

And [00:25:00] that was something that we were able to take to immigrants serving nonprofits and say, Hey, we have this opportunity of how we provide. , we know that these are the health inequities that we see in our practice. We know that you see them too, and this is how we, we could potentially bring that to you.

 And I think that it's so important for all of you to do that homework of looking at what are the potential opportunities and then what is the need that exists for that specific population in your community? And. , have you seen from the work that you've done that you're able to make a dent in that like the work that you're doing actually does help support them?

Dr. Omolara: And so that's the why cuz you wanna position it, especially when you're talking to funders, they want impact and so you wanna position it about how is this helping the greater good, not just the. And mission-driven health practices have that specific added layer. [00:26:00] Traditional health practices have the layer of we're gonna help this patient mission-driven, have the layer that we're gonna help this population, this community. And you know, that's, that's something you have to take on. I want you all to realize it's not that hard if you are seeking funding partnerships, it really helps to ease the burden of that important role. And definitely if you, you know, need help with that, or if you wanna learn more about that, we actually have a webinar on.

On our quick links so you can find it in the show notes, it's bitly slash melanin and medicine. It's short and sweet cuz I know you guys are busy and take a look at that. It also, I think, offers the chance to have a call with us, so make sure you just take a look at that. Watch it get the, get the information and what you'll notice, and it's called the Five Keys to Securing grant funding of 500,000 or more in [00:27:00] a year through for your mission-driven health practice. So, it's just a little bit of the lessons learned, and you'll notice some similarities in terms of what I've been talking about this. Piece pa next few weeks and that webinar. So take a look at that.

Otherwise, make sure you leave me some messages. Okay? Do your homework. d dm, me on Instagram, LinkedIn, all of those good stuff. I want us to create a community. Most importantly, make sure you're sharing this right. You know, somebody who's running a practice you know, somebody who's in a FQHC or a community health center and you know, cash flow is an issue there.

and how they can position that organization better. Let them know about the podcast. We are always happy to help as usual and just super excited that you are with us and thank you all for sharing. Thank you all for listening. And you know what, I'll see you next week and we will talk about that second thing that you need outside of the mission.

Okay? Have a good [00:28:00] rest of your week and make sure to stay well. Bye.