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Sierra Health Foundation defends CME model as a way to leverage small grants into larger local investments
Summary
Kai Yin Heng said CME’s technical assistance and capacity building turned $15.3 million into far greater investment and local leadership, with partners pursuing $400M in public grants and realizing about $178M returned to communities. The foundation urged sustained place‑based investment.
Kai Yin Heng, president of the Center at Sierra Health Foundation, told the committee CME’s approach centers community organizations in designing solutions and strengthening capacity to win public funding and partner with government. She said the initiative combines grants, technical assistance and regional cooperation and that partners have accessed hundreds of millions in public grants and contracts.
“Since 2022, CME partners have pursued more than 400,000,000 in public grants and contracts resulting in approximately a 178,000,000 in investment flowing back, flowing back into California's community,” Kai Yin Heng said. She and other witnesses argued that the state should consider structures to sustain that infrastructure so local capacity does not dissipate when initial grants end.
Committee members asked how modest initial investments translated into larger flows; Heng and other panelists pointed to technical assistance and regional convening as multiplier functions that allowed community groups to compete for larger contracts and attract private co‑investment.
