The Wavemaker Summit is a day dedicated to learning critical skills, taking action, and building relationships.
Learn skills that will propel our work forward! Connect with smart, passionate people who are dedicated to improving health in Wisconsin. Walk away feeling inspired with new insights, knowing that you are a part of a team and connected to something bigger.
OBJECTIVES - Share skills and build capacity to accelerate actions
- Unify the movement of healthy eating and physical activity in Wisconsin
- Foster connections and build relationships
Theme: TEAM
"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward larger objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." -Andrew Carnegie
Simply put, we’re stronger working together as a team. By leveraging our unique strengths and coordinating our efforts– we all win.
Skill Building Sessions
Basics of Community Organizing
David Liners (WISDOM) and Guy Reiter (Menominee Menikanaehkem) will lead a discussion of the attitudes and principles needed to build effective, lasting grassroots organizations. Guy will speak of his experience in organizing a growing movement to reclaim Menominee culture, language and values, and to protect ancestral lands and waters. David will speak of his work in building a statewide faith-based network for justice. In this session, attendees will be challenged to use and promote tools to help people move away from being victims or observers and into being powerful participants in the decisions that affect their communities.
David Liners, WISDOM
Guy Reiter, Menominee Menikanaehkem
So Many C’s, What’s Right for Me (and My Team)?
To solve complex problems, we assemble teams of people who care about the issues to organize and take collective action together. There are many ways to organize and structure a group of people, but it can be unclear what structure makes the most sense for your group and this can impact the way your group accomplishes its goals. At this session, experts from the field will discuss their experience leading groups using Community Coalition, Collaboration, Community Organizing, and Collective Impact and how these structures helped them to accomplish policy, systems and environmental change in local communities. Attendees will walk away with concrete tools and key learnings to take back and assess a team’s structure and processes.
Emily Dieringer, Winnebago County Health Department
Stephanie Gyldenvand, Winnebago County Health Department
Sarah Wright, Weight of the Fox Valley
One-stop Media Workshop
Mario Gonzalez (Live54218) and Rob Fontella (healthTIDE) will be conducting a 1-Stop Media Workshop: a hands-on session taking people through the development and dissemination of a message. Get the "how-to" and learn some useful tips to help shape how you tell your organization's story. Together, groups will produce Social media posts, Letters to the Editor, Press Releases, and prepare for on camera interviews--all in the spirit of doing more with less and getting your message out there!
Rob Fontella, healthTIDE
Mario Gonzalez, Live54218
Health and Racial Equity: Fundamentals and Tools (Part I)
Ensuring that our work helps to build a more equitable, healthier Wisconsin requires that we have the right tools and self-awareness to recognize some of our own biases. At this session, attendees will gain greater understanding of core concepts related to racial and health equity including: implicit bias; social and structural determinants of health; individual, institutional, and structural oppression; and how to apply health and racial equity considerations in your everyday work. Recommended to accompany the session, Health and Racial Equity in Community Engagement and Partnerships (Part II).
Jordan Bingham, Public Health - Madison & Dane County
Alia Stevenson, Public Health - Madison & Dane County
Health and Racial Equity in Community Engagement and Partnerships (Part II)
In order to build a healthy Wisconsin for all, we must ensure that everyone feels welcome and included in the decision-making processes that shape our communities. In this session, attendees will learn more about the value of different types of authentic community engagement, and how dominant culture shapes our thinking and actions. Attendees will also begin a personal and organizational equity action plan to use post-Summit! Recommended to accompany the session, Health and Racial Equity: Fundamentals and Tools (Part I).
Jordan Bingham, Public Health - Madison & Dane County
Alia Stevenson, Public Health - Madison & Dane County
Policy: They Can't Change What They Don't Understand
Are you hoping to see positive changes in your community and state? Are you comfortable reaching out to your local decision makers? This session will review approaches for building relationships with decision makers (elected or otherwise). We will review and practice strategies that help cultivate strong connections. We will also outline resources that you can share with your partners, as you prepare to work together towards positive change.
Maureen Busalacchi, Advancing a Healthier Endowment, Medical College of Wisconsin
Steve Elliott, Wisconsin Alliance of YMCAs
Building Economic Development Partnerships to Advance Healthy Communities
By building connections with economic development partners, coalitions can advance their efforts to create healthier communities, especially through more access to healthy fruits and vegetables and safe, attractive places to get around by foot, bike and other modes of transportation. This session will highlight examples of local coalitions associated with the Wisconsin Active Communities Alliance (WACA) and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s downtown development programs that have deployed strategies to encourage health and economic activity in their areas. Participants will also engage in facilitated small group work that allows them to connect with colleagues and uncover insights, engage in problem solving, and develop next steps in their own work related to the topic.
Jen Walker, healthTIDE
Darrin Wasniewski, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Mainstreet Program
Centering Health in Place: A Panel-style Discussion about the Interconnectivity between Place and Health
Health is profoundly impacted by the places where we live, learn, work and play. It’s now understood that zipcode is a better predictor of health than genetic code. In order to build healthy, vibrant communities across Wisconsin, we must continue to put place at the forefront of the discussion around health. Join us for a panel style discussion with three experts, who will discuss their work, stories from the field, and share tangible things that you can do to build places in your community that promote health.
Sara Ansell, School of Human Ecology, UW-Madison
Sam Dennis, UW-Madison
Joe Kaltenberg, MKE Plays-City of Milwaukee
