Community Health & Employee Engagement Programs

Each year, Highmark Health and its affiliates contribute millions of dollars to support hundreds of organizations and programs that improve health, well-being, and quality of life in our communities. Highmark Health and its affiliates also manage community and employee programs as part of giving back to, reinvesting in, and strengthening our communities.

Some of our best-known community and employee programs include:

• Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community
  The Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community, founded in 2003, is an annual fundraising walk that benefits local health and human service agencies, making a difference, one step at a time. The primary goal of the walk is to help participating organizations raise money for their individual missions. Through 2021, the Walk for a Healthy Community events have raised more than $17 million for more than 500 health & human service nonprofit organizations. Highmark coordinates the events and underwrites all costs. One hundred percent of the funds raised through this event go directly back to the participating organizations.
• For any nonprofit looking to apply for consideration of participation in the 2022 Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community cycle, please visit the Nonprofit Application.
• United Way Campaign
  Highmark Health employees care about the communities in which they live, and their contributions to local United Way agencies reflect this. Highmark Health hosts an annual campaign across all regions to support local United Way agencies. Employees support the United Way agencies not only by donating, but also through volunteerism and community engagement, which supports local nonprofits. In 2021, the United Way Campaign raised $2.5 million for our communities.
• Volunteering
  The organizations that are part of Highmark Health proudly support a decades-long tradition of employees volunteering. In addition to participating in the annual United Way Day of Caring, Highmark Health has multiple enterprise-wide initiatives to empower employee volunteers:
• Our Volunteer Day Off gives employees an extra paid day off for volunteering during normal work hours.
• YourCause, an online system, sorts volunteer opportunities by location, causes, and skills; tracks volunteer hours; and provides up-to-date project information for both internal and external opportunities.
• RAVE (Recognition Award for Volunteer Engagement)
  This program is integrated within the YourCause platform. The recognition award is based upon the number of volunteer hours that an employee records in the platform. Employees can redeem a Cause Card, which is a monetary donation for the charity of their choice. A total of 163 donations were issued for volunteer service in 2021, benefiting 119 charities with $30,650 in donations.

• Addressing Social Determinants of Health
  In the U.S., social factors, or Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, can impact up to 80% of someone's health. Highmark Health is working to minimize barriers to improve the health and well-being of the communities and customers it serves. But we can't do it alone.
  
  As a catalyst for change, Highmark Health teams up with others to create environments that help people be fully healthy — mentally, physically, and socially.
• Making Social Care Part of Whole Person Care
  Through case workers and provider partners, Highmark Health's team asks "non-health" questions help pinpoint identify SDoH factors impacting our members. By getting to root causes, Highmark can lead the way in helping members and patients can move past health care to focus solely on health. The following areas are addressed through these questions:
• Food Insecurity
• Social Isolation
• Housing Stability
• Health Literacy
• Financial Resource Strain
• Transportation Needs
• Safe and Stable Housing
• Employment
• Childcare Access and Affordability
• Once case workers and providers have identified social barriers to health, the member is connected to organizations and resources within their community via the Highmark Community Support platform.
• Community Investments in Social Care
  Addressing social barriers to health also requires commitment and investment at the community level. Highmark uses tools such as the Community Health Management Hub^® and hundreds of public and clinical data sets to understand the challenges facing specific communities. Highmark Health then works with local community groups and leaders to co-create innovative approaches that will help improve community health and reduce health disparities.