If there is a theme for those of us who deal in federal grants right now, it is uncertainty. Things are changing, and they’re changing quickly. (Or perhaps there is only the risk or appearance of change, in some cases?) We don’t know how these federal actions will shake out—nor do we fully know what the knock-on effects might be for state, local, and even foundation funding. These are separate entities, but they’re part of the same, interrelated ecosystem, and the odds of them remaining unchanged if there are wide swings at the federal level is statistically improbable.
And if there’s one thing organizations try to avoid during times of upheaval, it’s leadership change. Why add another variable to an already confounded mix? But change happens, whether we plan it or not, and PCC’s outgoing President and CEO, Leslie Graham, knows a thing or two about how disorienting—but ultimately affirming—it can be. It’s a background she shared in Stronger Together: PCC’s 2023 Storytelling Show.
When she was in grade school, Graham’s family faced a relocation for her father’s job. They could either move to Umbogintwini, South Africa or Maryland, USA. Maryland was closer to their home in Canada and not governed by an apartheid regime, so Maryland it was. And it doesn’t seem like Maryland would be that different, but as the school year got underway, Graham found herself “completely perplexed.” Her clothes were all wrong, she was featured as the teacher’s exotic “Eskimo” despite sharing the same British heritage as many of her peers, and simple spelling words like “colour” she had mastered in Canada lost a vowel on the move south. It was not an easy time to be Leslie Graham.
Things turned around when she made her very first friend, Lissa, who remains a dear friend today. Graham built a community of seven close friends who have helped each other weather life’s storms. She believes PCC has forged similarly deep connections in the community and is prepared for her three core tenets of weathering change:
And if there’s one thing organizations try to avoid during times of upheaval, it’s leadership change. Why add another variable to an already confounded mix? But change happens, whether we plan it or not, and PCC’s outgoing President and CEO, Leslie Graham, knows a thing or two about how disorienting—but ultimately affirming—it can be. It’s a background she shared in Stronger Together: PCC’s 2023 Storytelling Show.
When she was in grade school, Graham’s family faced a relocation for her father’s job. They could either move to Umbogintwini, South Africa or Maryland, USA. Maryland was closer to their home in Canada and not governed by an apartheid regime, so Maryland it was. And it doesn’t seem like Maryland would be that different, but as the school year got underway, Graham found herself “completely perplexed.” Her clothes were all wrong, she was featured as the teacher’s exotic “Eskimo” despite sharing the same British heritage as many of her peers, and simple spelling words like “colour” she had mastered in Canada lost a vowel on the move south. It was not an easy time to be Leslie Graham.
Things turned around when she made her very first friend, Lissa, who remains a dear friend today. Graham built a community of seven close friends who have helped each other weather life’s storms. She believes PCC has forged similarly deep connections in the community and is prepared for her three core tenets of weathering change:
During PCC’s decades of administering Montgomery County healthcare programs for the uninsured, we have worked with multiple county executives and directors of the Department of Health and Human Services. “We move smoothly through leadership changes at high levels because we share a passion for the underserved,” Graham says. Local officials have “shared PCC’s conviction that health care is a right and a necessity, for individuals, for families, and for the county.”
Similarly, the Nexus Montgomery Regional Partnership survived the end of its founding grant sources four years into the partnership, and the later cancellation of a multi-year diabetes prevention grant. Those funding changes have affected the program mix, but the value of shared investment in community health has remained strong, and the Nexus Montgomery partnership with local hospitals endures.
Similarly, the Nexus Montgomery Regional Partnership survived the end of its founding grant sources four years into the partnership, and the later cancellation of a multi-year diabetes prevention grant. Those funding changes have affected the program mix, but the value of shared investment in community health has remained strong, and the Nexus Montgomery partnership with local hospitals endures.
Uncertainty does not have to be a moment of panic; it can be an opportunity. Implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), with its profound impact on insurance coverage in Maryland could well have reduced the importance of or local commitment to healthcare access for the uninsured.
Instead, PCC worked with the County and other partners on a ‘both/and’ approach: serving as the performance manager for navigating people into health insurance made possible by the ACA and seizing the transformative moment of the ACA to enhance the Montgomery Cares program. The MCares 2.0 project brought a new level of standardization to safety-net health care in our community by defining the essential services clinics committed to provide and building capacity of clinics to accept Medicaid and other insurances. Those efforts ensure high quality care and consistency of services for patients—whether insured or not and regardless of which clinic they attend. This also made clinics more financially sustainable by diversifying their payer mix, and allowed patients to remain at their trusted clinic if they gained affordable coverage through ACA.
Instead, PCC worked with the County and other partners on a ‘both/and’ approach: serving as the performance manager for navigating people into health insurance made possible by the ACA and seizing the transformative moment of the ACA to enhance the Montgomery Cares program. The MCares 2.0 project brought a new level of standardization to safety-net health care in our community by defining the essential services clinics committed to provide and building capacity of clinics to accept Medicaid and other insurances. Those efforts ensure high quality care and consistency of services for patients—whether insured or not and regardless of which clinic they attend. This also made clinics more financially sustainable by diversifying their payer mix, and allowed patients to remain at their trusted clinic if they gained affordable coverage through ACA.
Sometimes events are destabilizing to the point of panic. Sometimes policy changes appear designed with panic in mind. Either way, the directive is the same: focus on the work of our mission.
The outbreak of a global pandemic in 2020 upended basically everything and created impacts we’re all still working to understand. It also created opportunities to support community health in all new ways. PCC learned to manage personal protective equipment purchasing in market conditions that changed by the minute, to quickly and effectively deliver sustainability-building grants to community providers, to translate our clinical process expertise into infection control protocols for social service providers, and generally how to activate our relationships and services for new use cases.
Organizations, like people, evolve and change. But whatever the surrounding context, Graham believes that PCC’s core mission and culture of caring is the compelling throughline. “At PCC, we fight hatred with love and respect and collaboration,” Graham says. “Uncertainty becomes opportunity for building more partnerships to address each new adversity.”
The outbreak of a global pandemic in 2020 upended basically everything and created impacts we’re all still working to understand. It also created opportunities to support community health in all new ways. PCC learned to manage personal protective equipment purchasing in market conditions that changed by the minute, to quickly and effectively deliver sustainability-building grants to community providers, to translate our clinical process expertise into infection control protocols for social service providers, and generally how to activate our relationships and services for new use cases.
Organizations, like people, evolve and change. But whatever the surrounding context, Graham believes that PCC’s core mission and culture of caring is the compelling throughline. “At PCC, we fight hatred with love and respect and collaboration,” Graham says. “Uncertainty becomes opportunity for building more partnerships to address each new adversity.”
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