Investing in Our Communities & Community Benefit

We're not just talking the talk.

Trinity Health is actively investing in ways to reduce unfair, avoidable differences arising from discriminatory policies, historic and persistent disinvestment in communities of color, and cultural exclusion. 

In Fiscal Year 2022, Trinity Health invested $1.4 billion in Community Benefit initiatives, supporting those who are experiencing poverty and other vulnerabilities, helping to manage chronic conditions (like diabetes), providing health education, and working to advance policy, system, and environmental change.

Community Benefit Reporting and Community Health Needs Assessment

We continually evaluate how we can do more. Every three years, Trinity Health hospitals conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) with community partners, using data and community input to measure the relative health and well-being of a community. The results of the assessment are then used to create a strategy outlining how the hospital, along with community partners, will address the needs of the communities we serve. 

We hold ourselves accountable through community benefit reporting – in detail – on Schedule H of the IRS Form 990. Links to each Trinity Health member-hospital may be found here. 

Programs qualifying as a community benefit must meet specific objectives and guidelines to ensure they're in fact improving health outcomes in communities and increasing access to healthcare. 

In addition to the Community Benefit activities and services reported on the IRS form 990 Schedule H, Trinity Health reports:

Community Health Institute

Our action doesn't stop there. We're proud of the steps we've taken to invest in the health and well-being of our communities. In 2008, we established the Trinity Health Community Health Institute which annually commits grant funding support to community-based organizations and accelerates community health improvements. 

Transforming Communities Initiative (TCI) 
The second round of TCI launched in January 2022, as an innovative health system/community partner collaborative supported by funding and technical assistance, partnering Trinity Health, its Regional Health Ministries (RHMs), community-based organizations and residents to advance health and racial equity in 9 of Trinity Health communities that have 40% of more of their population who are Black or Latinx and experiencing high poverty and other vulnerabilities. Each TCI community, through a multi-sector collaborative, develops and implements evidence-based strategies that advance health and racial equity through addressing one priority need identified through the hospital’s most recent Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) Implementation Plan, or one community need identified through an inclusive community-driven approach. For more information on TCI, click here.

Community Investing Program

Trinity Health's Community Investing Program makes low-interest rate loans to select community partners and intermediaries to positively impact social influencers that drive healthy outcomes for families and residents living in the communities we serve. In Fiscal Year 2023, Trinity Health’s total loan portfolio included $2.9 million in loans. 

In 2022, the Healthcare Anchor Network published a case study on Trinity Health Investing that included an overview of the program and supporting projects that reduce social and economic disparities that cause unequal health outcomes for minority and low-income communities. Focus areas include advancing access to higher education; fair and affordable housing; economic development and empowerment; and access to healthy, affordable food. Access the case study here.

Shareholder Advocacy

We work tirelessly to impact long-term policies that affect Social Influencers of Health (the living conditions that can affect the health of a community, such as housing, food, education, healthcare, and economics). In partnership with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN), and Investors for Opioid and Pharmaceutical Accountability (IOPA), Trinity Health uses its ownership of shares of stock in corporations to influence corporations' policies and practices on environmental and social concerns that impact communities' health and well-being. 

We take action by writing letters to companies, meeting with corporate management, and submitting and supporting shareholder resolutions as agenda items for companies' annual meetings of shareholders.