Appalachian Partnership Fund

The Appalachian Partnership Fund (APF) was a time-limited, CDC-supported regrant initiative led by Community Education Group (CEG) to strengthen local organizations’ ability to deliver community-based health promotion and outreach in rural and under-resourced settings. APF provided direct funding to trusted local partners and paired it with hands-on support, including technical assistance, communications amplification, and evaluation support, to reduce reporting burden and improve implementation quality. 

APF launched in West Virginia with an initial cohort of 16 organizations and supported services such as vaccination and testing events, outreach, and wellness education. 

What APF Supported

APF grants helped local organizations deliver community-facing services, including COVID-19 testing and vaccination, influenza vaccination, procurement and distribution of test kits and PPE, and local wellness education. CEG also provided implementation support and coordination across the network, including staffing, evaluation, and contracted communications support to extend reach and improve consistency across partners. 

Outcomes 

During the Year 2 reporting period, APF awardees served 4,385+ clients across multiple states and delivered measurable prevention and screening services, including:  

  • 228+ COVID-19 vaccinations 
  • 645+ COVID-19 tests (35 positive results reported) 
  • 1,002+ HIV tests (4 positive results reported) 
  • 470+ HCV tests (97 positive results reported 

Partners delivered outreach through mobile services, community events, patient visits, newsletters, and webinars. Some events included testing with linkage-to-care workflows when positive results were identified. 

Capacity Building and Technical Assistance Delivered

CEG provided practical, low-burden technical assistance to help awardees implement and report on activities. During the reporting period, support included: 

  • 17 individual grantee check-ins 
  • 1 grantee receiving weekly coaching/mentorship 
  • 2 grantees receiving media technical assistance to promote community events 
  • 2 virtual grantee meetings 

Communications Reach

To reinforce local outreach, CEG ran a coordinated education and awareness campaign across digital platforms and direct mail (Aug 1–May 15): 

  • Facebook/Instagram: 14,899 reach and 1,028 engagements 
  • Twitter: 6,811 impressions and 244 engagements 
  • LinkedIn: 16,231 impressions and 103 engagements 
  • Direct mail (“Boost Up!”): vaccine education postcards delivered to 94,836 households 

What Awardees Reported

In a May 2023 grantee survey, 55.6% of respondents reported seeing CEG’s COVID-19 and influenza social media content and described it as useful for increasing awareness and informing local outreach. Awardees also emphasized that trust, strong partnerships, and culturally appropriate messaging were critical to reaching priority populations, including communities of color and households below 200% of the federal poverty level. 

Funding Acknowledgment 

The Appalachian Partnership Fund (APF) was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Cooperative Agreement No. 1 NU51IP000935-01-00.