WorkLife Partnership Awarded $1M Grant to Increase Financial Stability of Colorado’s Healthcare Workforce

Through the grant, WorkLife Partnership will be able to serve up to 20,000 low-income Coloradans

DENVER–Oct. 27, 2022–WorkLife Partnership was recently awarded $1,000,000 of grant funding by The Colorado Health Foundation to support Financial Resilience and Wealth Creation for Healthcare Workers. WorkLife Partnership’s mission is to build prosperity for individuals, business, families, and communities by unleashing the potential of workers through collaboration with their employers and other resources.

This grant funding will allow WorkLife to provide blended support to healthcare workers – primarily employees at Federally Qualified Healthcare Clinics (FQHCs) and community organizations serving BIPOC Coloradans – so they experience increased financial resilience and build a foundation for increased wealth. WorkLife will partner with organizations and offer support from its own programming – Resource and Health Benefits Navigation and Small Dollar Loans – with the services of other nonprofits and community organizations serving low-and-medium-income (LMI) workers in the healthcare sector.

“WorkLife is thrilled to receive this grant award and put it toward supporting our state’s healthcare workers with resources, like access to our Small Dollar Loan Program, and connections to programs focused on home ownership, debt management, and other financial literacy opportunities,” said WorkLife Partnership Founder and CEO Liddy Romero. “We see firsthand the urgent need to support the financial stability of Colorado’s healthcare workers and are ready to maximize the impact of this grant to serve this community.” 

WorkLife currently partners with Denver Health, SCL Health, Clinica Family Health, Sangre de Cristo Community Care and others, and this grant will allow it to expand and partner with 10 additional healthcare and community-based organizations.  

“The Foundation values supporting frontline healthcare workers on every care team with jobs with living wages,” said Ben L. Bynum, M.D., Senior Director of Impact Investing for the Colorado Health Foundation. “While philanthropy continues to work towards raising the pay of Colorado’s frontline workforce, programs like WorkLife’s Small Dollar Loan Program, ensure that individuals and families living on low-income can access emergency loans in the most friendly way possible. This partnership is not only about helping frontline healthcare workers avoid the payday/predatory lending trap to sometimes make their mortgage payments, the wraparound coaching and counseling should provide frontline healthcare workers with better overall financial well-being in the long run.”

WorkLife’s Small Dollar Loan Program, launched in 2020, aims to help LMI workers overcome the financial challenges that accompany deficits in monthly income. The program provides a safe lending option to populations who are often excluded from conventional credit options.

The funding from The Colorado Health Foundation extends access to the Loan Program as well as WorkLife’s Health Benefits Navigation Program to healthcare workers for whom LMI wages, race, ethnicity and gender have suppressed access to safe lending. Studies show safe lending not only helps in the short term but enables borrowers to build credit and increases financial confidence which promotes long-term economic security. 

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About WorkLife Partnership: WorkLife Partnership, founded in 2009, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to economic equity and thriving workplaces across the country. WorkLife deploys its Resource Navigator benefit inside of businesses to provide personalized, immediate, one-on-one assistance when workers need it most. WorkLife Resource Navigators minimize work disruptions, decrease absenteeism, improve workers’ financial stability and ultimately increase employee retention and engagement. Currently, more than 65,000 employees across 36 employers are eligible to receive support from WorkLife, and 80 percent of those surveyed by WorkLife said that they felt good working for a company that offers this benefit. WorkLife is guided by its vision that prosperity is possible for everyone through work.

About the Colorado Health Foundation

The Colorado Health Foundation is bringing health in reach for all Coloradans by engaging closely with communities across the state through investing, policy advocacy, learning and capacity building. For more information, please visit www.coloradohealth.org.