Thurston Thrives gets another chance after County Commission approves funding
Thurston County will spend an additional $40,000 to fund a struggling community initiative aimed at addressing racial health disparities.
The Board of County Commissioners voted 2-1 to continue funding Thurston Thrives through the end of the year, despite concerns the effort is not achieving results. Commissioners Carolina Mejia and Tye Menser voted in favor while Commissioner Gary Edwards voted against it.
Thurston Thrives started more than seven years ago with the intent of improving health and safety outcomes for county residents. The initiative attempted to do so by coordinating county, business and non-profit resources to address goals. Since 2015, it has been overseen by the Thurston Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
Over the past six months, Thurston Thrives narrowed its focus from those wide-ranging goals to reducing racial health disparities, Chamber President and CEO David Schaffert said during a March 3 meeting with County Commissioners.
The initiative has been restructured under a new governance model, he said. It originally created eight Action Teams and set up a Coordinating Council to realize its goals, but a lack of measurable outcomes cast its efficacy into doubt.
The new model separates local elected officials from the coordinating council and places those officials in a separate body. The initiative also will feature a new group for funders and a reorganized Executive Committee.
This change occurred under the leadership of Schaffert and former Olympia Mayor Doug Mah, now director of public policy.
During the Tuesday meeting, Commissioner Menser referred to an editorial in The Olympian that called for the initiative to end.
He said about two years ago he asked the same questions about the program that were laid out in the opinion piece, but he thinks Thurston Thrives has learned to refocus and retool is efforts since then.
“Equity issues are an extremely high priority for Thurston County right now,” Menser said. “So, I was happy to see that more narrow focus on something that I think is a really important issue.”
Even with some questions persisting, Menser said he’s willing to give the initiative another chance to prove itself.
“I’m willing to give them a year and see how this retooled structure functions,” he said. “And certainly, I want to re-evaluate this early next year and see if it’s still worth the county’s investment.”
Commissioner Edwards, who voted against the funding, struck a decidedly different tone on the initiative.
“I realize the Chamber’s philosophy, their heart is in the right spot,” Edwards said. “I just don’t believe they’ve attained where I think they ought to be yet.”
While Commissioner and Board Chair Mejia also expressed skepticism about Thurston Thrives, she ultimately voted in favor of continuing funding. She said she did so “not light heartedly.”
“I feel if it does not work out this year, then we can go ahead and pull back,” Mejia said. “$40,000 is a lot and honestly, we could be investing it in many other different ways that Public Health needs at this point in time.”
She added she felt Thurston Thrives deserved another year to show meaningful, measurable outcomes.
Schaffert told The Olympian on Thursday that the initiative will measure its success by focusing on collecting data and measuring outcomes in four key areas.
These areas include infant mortality, premature births, depression among eighth graders, and fair or poor health among adults.
The new governance model should also go a long way toward creating greater efficiency and inclusion, he said. This will help them focus on their “north star” of addressing disparities in health equity.
Schaffert said he is excited by the Commission’s continued funding and appreciative of their comments and questions.
“Hopefully, we’ve done a nice job of addressing (those questions) with the new governance as well as that north star and those four identified measures of success,” he said.
