What does it mean for a community to be healthy? We might think of accessible healthcare, nutritious food, safe housing, clean air, and places where people can gather and belong. But beneath each of these conditions is a question of power: Who decides what our communities need, whose needs are prioritized, and who gets to shape the decisions that affect our lives?
These questions sit at the heart of civic health.
Civic health reflects our ability to participate in the decisions, institutions, and collective actions that shape our shared lives. It shows up when we vote, organize neighbors, advocate for policy changes, attend public meetings, and hold elected officials accountable. Civic engagement is not separate from community health. It is one of the ways we build it, protect it, and sustain it.
When communities can influence decisions about housing, education, food access, public safety, and the environment, they are better positioned to create conditions for people to thrive. Across Washington State, Black leaders and organizers have long demonstrated how collective action can turn community knowledge into meaningful change.
Black Washingtonians Leading the Way
Senator Rosa Franklin, a registered nurse and the first Black woman elected to the Washington State Senate in 1990, brought her healthcare experience into public service. Among her contributions was helping establish Washington’s Governor’s Interagency Council on Health Disparities in 2006, creating a statewide mechanism for developing recommendations to address health inequities. Her legacy reminds us that representation matters—and so does using our influence to shape public policy.
In Spokane, Takeall Coalition demonstrates how civic engagement can help shape the conditions that support Black wellness. By bringing together Black-led organizations, businesses, and community advocates, Takeall connects policy education and engagement with elected officials to priorities including Black maternal health, housing, food security, and economic opportunity. Its work illustrates how communities can translate shared concerns into collective action and advocate for the resources necessary to thrive.
In Tacoma, Harold Moss, the city’s first Black mayor from 1994 to 1995, helped advance civil rights and address barriers to housing and economic opportunity through community leadership and public service. His career illustrates how civic participation can open doors to decision-making and help shape the neighborhood conditions that influence community well-being.
In the Tri-Cities, Marion Keith Barton, the first Black woman elected to Pasco City Council in 1969, represents another chapter in Washington’s history of Black civic leadership. Her story offers an opportunity to reflect on the importance of representation in communities shaped by segregation and unequal access to resources, and why Black residents must have a voice in decisions affecting their futures.
In Bellevue, Eastside Pathways, a current Black Future Co-op Fund grantee, demonstrates how collective action can strengthen the systems that support children, young people, and families. Working across East King County, the organization brings together community members, families, educators, nonprofits, businesses, and government leaders to improve outcomes from early childhood through young adulthood. Through cross-sector collaboration, community-informed data, and advocacy, Eastside Pathways helps partners identify inequities, align their efforts, and work toward more equitable opportunities for every child to thrive. Its approach underscores an essential dimension of civic health: lasting change becomes more possible when people with different perspectives and forms of influence work together, and when community knowledge helps shape the systems intended to serve them.
These examples take different forms, but share a common thread: communities are healthier when the people closest to the challenges have the power and resources to shape the solutions.
From Participation to Possibility
What does this mean for each of us?
Voting matters because elected officials make decisions about budgets, public services, and policies that shape our daily lives. But civic engagement extends beyond Election Day. It means learning how decisions are made, building relationships with neighbors, advocating for community priorities, and supporting the people and organizations already doing this work.
Participation does not require a political title or professional expertise. It can begin with a conversation, a community meeting, a letter to an elected official, or a commitment to learn more about an issue affecting your neighborhood. It also means looking beyond immediate needs toward the policies and investments that make lasting well-being possible.
At the Black Future Co-op Fund, we believe in the abundance, self-determination, and collective power of Black Washingtonians. Nurturing civic health is part of that commitment: ensuring Black communities have not only the resources to thrive, but also the influence to help shape their futures.
Our communities have always held wisdom about what they need. The question is whether the systems around us will listen—and whether we will continue building the collective power to make that listening matter.
What could become possible if we treated civic engagement as an essential part of community care? Our communities’ health is shaped by the choices we make together, the systems we challenge, and the futures we commit to building. We each have a role in that work.