Partnership Across Distance: The Texas Panhandle

Recently, the Hogg Foundation launched its Strengthening Mental Health in Rural and Rural Border Communities initiative. Designed to strengthen access to care in rural Texas communities, this effort didn’t happen in isolation. Two of the grantee partner sites are being co-funded in partnership with the Amarillo Area Foundation and the Mary E. Bivins Foundation, organizations deeply rooted in the Texas Panhandle.

In today’s episode, we look at how partnerships can stretch across counties and communities to align resources and ensure that rural Texans don’t have to navigate care alone. Our guests are Lara Escobar, vice president of community investment at the Amarillo Area Foundation, and Katharyn Wiegand, president and chief executive officer of the Mary E. Bivins Foundation, Rick Ybarra, senior program officer at the Hogg Foundation, and Tammy Heinz, senior program officer and consumer and family liaison at the Hogg Foundation.

Uniquely Rural

Over 300,000 people call the Texas Panhandle home. The region spreads over nearly 26,000 miles and is comprised of 26 counties, and all but two are considered rural.

“It’s a large, spread-out area, lots of drive time, lots of open space. And so, as we know, with medical care, that can be a challenge,” says Katharyn.

In addition to distance from medical care, residents of rural areas like the Panhandle face challenges that urban residents often do not. Rural areas face a scarcity of mental health professionals, lack of funding for care, lack of access to telehealth services, greater stigma around mental health issues, and greater reluctance to seek help. At the same time, rural communities often find strength in strong community bonds and tenacious resourcefulness.

Partnering in the Panhandle

The Hogg Foundation’s approach to grantmaking has increasingly focused on addressing the needs of rural communities like those in the Panhandle, beginning with the Collaborative Approaches to Well-being in Rural Communities (WRC) initiative in 2018.

“We can look back at the history of the foundation and map out where we’ve had an impact. In all fairness, it’s weighted very heavily in urban areas because that’s who’s applied for the opportunities over the years,” says Tammy. “And so, we felt like we needed to make a really intentional effort to figure out how to get into different areas of Texas where we didn’t have that footprint.”

The Hogg Foundation is a member of Texas Rural Funders which works to mobilize the power of philanthropy to strengthen rural Texas, and whose members include the Mary E. Bivins and Amarillo Area foundations.

“We can’t give enough credit to Texas Rural Funders,” says Tammy. “I think we’ve not only broadened our relationships through being part of the organization, but we’ve certainly broadened our knowledge base in terms of what we’ve learned about rural communities.”

Over time, the idea of working in partnership with the two Panhandle-based foundations seemed like a natural fit for the Hogg Foundation.

“We’d developed relationships based on mutual trust and respect,” says Rick. “It just seemed natural to reach out and say, ‘We’ve got this initiative, and we think it aligns with your work. Have a look at it, give us your thoughts, and if this is something you’d like to work with us on, we’d love to talk more about it.”

Sustainability and Durability

While the partnership provides funding for five years, the initiative is also looking beyond the grant term.

“We’re always thinking about what happens after the grant? What happens when the money is no longer coming in?” says Tammy. “So, we’ve spent time thinking about and trying to learn about what sustainability or durability look like in communities.”

Forming strong relationships and partnerships will be central – not only to build organizational capacity that continues to thrive after the grant’s conclusion, but also to create a shared vision for community mental health.

“Building relationships, building partnerships, and having the time to do both are what I see as the three legs of the stool that afford communities the opportunity to really institute some type of change,” says Laura. “No one organization can do it by themselves. Whether you’re a funder, whether you’re a nonprofit, no one organization can do it all. That really speaks to the power of relationships and partnerships.”