The California Endowment's mission is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians, and the Center for Healthy Communities’ role is to provide grantees and partners the opportunity to build relationships and gain exposure to new skills, strategies, ideas and issues. As The Endowment embarks on its 10-year Building Healthy Communities initiative, a partnership with 14 communities to make California a place where all children and youth are healthy, safe and ready to learn, the Center serves as a forum for collaborative action to help make that vision a reality. Through the conference center and other programming, the Center enriches the public dialogue about health, and builds the capacity and leadership of The California Endowment’s staff, grantees, and partners, so all in the health sector can have the education, skills, and social networks that will make them and their organizations as effective as they can be.