Applying Advocacy Skills in Tumultuous Times: Adaptive Capacity of Insuring America's Children Grantees

In 2007, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation established Insuring America's Children to help secure health care for all children. A new brief and executive summary document how state-based grantees responded and adapted to unprecedented changes in children's coverage over the past several years. As state economic and political contexts shifted, grantees adapted strategic partnerships, assuming new and expanded leadership roles in state-based coalitions and forging partnerships with nontraditional groups, such as the business community. With support from the national technical assistance center, they also strengthened their reach by serving as sources of timely and reliable analysis for state policymakers and other stakeholders. And they carried out campaigns, both public and behind-the-scenes, in support of their long-term goal of covering all children, focusing on consistent, positive messages to break through the gloomy economy and sometimes combative political atmosphere.