For many Kansans, the path to a healthy life is shaped by factors far beyond their control, like access to affordable housing, good jobs and quality childcare.
At the Kansas Health Foundation, we use the term Upward Mobility to describe what it takes to clear that path so that every Kansan has the opportunity to succeed regardless of their starting point.
Upward Mobility is our major health challenge for 2026, and we are preparing to convene at our second annual FuseKS event to co-create a Blueprint that will shape the path forward as a state.
Putting Structure Around a Big Challenge
Upward Mobility is influenced by many parts of daily life. Because of that, it can feel overwhelming.
Where do we begin? Who’s responsible? What actions will actually make a difference?
FuseKS helps answer these questions.
This annual convening brings together advocates, experts and community partners working on the issue. Together, these stakeholders build a shared vision for action grounded in what’s working, what’s needed and what matters most to Kansans.
FuseKS is one milestone within the Kansas Health Foundation’s broader Arc of Progress, an approach to collective action that we use to turn complex challenges into coordinated, statewide action.
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We use this framework to address challenges like Upward Mobility. It ensures our efforts are grounded in listening, informed by data and designed to generate both early momentum and progress. The Mobilization Arc is about “setting the table” by bringing together the people, insights and conditions needed for meaningful change.
Where We Are and Where We’re Going
After selecting Upward Mobility as our major health challenge, we began by listening and learning. We conducted interviews across the state, partnered with the Kansas Health Institute to analyze data and gathered input from partners. We also invited perspectives from Kansans statewide through a broad crowdsourcing effort.
Together, this input shaped the key priorities we will bring to FuseKS next week.
During FuseKS, attendees will actively refine priorities and co-create the strategies that will make up the Blueprint for Upward Mobility in Kansas.
Our goal is simple: when people leave FuseKS, they carry the Blueprint forward and put it into action in their own work. We plan to do the same.
After FuseKS, the Kansas Health Foundation will align our grantmaking, policy efforts and impact investing with the strategies in the Blueprint. Our Transformation Grants and Mass Action mini-grants will support organizations and ideas that advance the Blueprint and move this work forward.
We say this often:
To make an impact, we need more people moving in the same direction differently.
New ideas, innovations and resources are what carry this work forward from FuseKS, a single event, to lasting change.
Kansas Health Foundation may have named Upward Mobility as our major health challenge, but the Blueprint belongs to the people and organizations shaping it. Their leadership and commitment are what will help Kansas make progress on one of our biggest challenges.