It’s time to dismantle Thurston Thrives, which has struggled to put theory to practice

More than seven years ago, Thurston Thrives was created to expand our definition of public health, and to coordinate a wide range of organizations that promote the health of our community. Now there are questions about whether it’s working, and whether Thurston County should continue to fund it.

The founding idea was that our health is a product not just of our genetics and our medical care, but also of our access to decent housing, a healthy environment, good food, decent jobs, public safety, and a functioning community. The theory was that by creating an organization to promote coordination among all the groups engaged in improving these things, we could create longer, healthier lives for all. That is an idea that is easy to endorse.

Thurston Thrives named eight Action Teams and created a Coordinating Council to pursue this strategy. Now, years later, there is no data to show whether it has made us any healthier.

Michael Cade, executive director of the Thurston Economic Development Council, credits Thurston Thrives’ Food Action Team with bringing local farmers, food banks and consumers together to create momentum for building an Agricultural Innovation and Business Park in Tenino.

But that success is the exception. Some of the Action Teams haven’t met in years. The Public Safety Action Team has gone its own way as criminal justice reform advances within the system. The Clinical Care Action Team vanished soon after it was created. Others have not posted minutes on the Thurston Thrives website for years. (When this was pointed out, the page for them disappeared from the Thurston Thrives website.)

Thurston Thrives is now led by the Thurston Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which has held a county contract to oversee it since 2015. Under the leadership of Chamber President and CEO David Schaffert and former Olympia Mayor Doug Mah, who is director of public policy, it has narrowed its mission from improving public health to reducing racial health disparities. At a County Commission meeting on Thursday, Schaffert said that discussion took six months.

For the past 10 months they have worked on a new governance model, which, he concedes, some of the remaining Action Teams still don’t like. The new model removes local elected officials from the Coordinating Council to a separate body, and features a newly reconfigured Executive Committee and a group for its funders.

Two County Commissioners — Carolina Mejia and Gary Edwards — are questioning whether the county should renew its $40,000 annual contract to support this work.

We share their skepticism, and will be watching when they vote on it at Tuesday’s meeting.

Thurston Thrives was correct in its premise that public health is affected by the full range of community conditions, from housing to climate change. But the notion that public health – or racial disparities – can be changed by creating and funding a superstructure aimed at the diaphanous task of coordination just isn’t realistic. As one local elected official remarked, “It’s just more meetings.”

The flaw in the Thurston Thrives theory was on display during Thursday’s County Commission conversation. The question arose as to what the Environment Action Team could do to help reduce racial disparities in infant mortality. The answer: Just keep doing what you’re doing to protect the environment. What’s the value of having an overarching organization to tell them that?

Community organizations and institutions are usually smart enough to decide for themselves when and where to collaborate. In some instances, more collaboration may be a good idea; in others, staying focused on their own mission — housing more people, for instance — is the better course.

Protracted tinkering with Thurston Thrives’ mission and structure only prolongs its problems and its cost.

The failure of Thurston Thrives does not call for laying blame. It’s simply time to acknowledge that it was a nice theory that doesn’t work in practice.