Alishia

Alisha Brown is the Vice President of the Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities and the Founder and Director of its be well Health and Wellness Initiative. Her focus is to advance equity through community based strategies to ensure that all people have the opportunity to live a healthy and prosperous life regardless of their social circumstances. She created the be well Block Captain community engagement model, an evidence based approach that combines local neighborhood ingenuity with industry expertise. This model builds advocates in our most vulnerable communities to create solutions to our most complex challenges. The model is known nationally and is supported by various organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In her role as the Principal Investigator of the be well be EPIC Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health project of the CDC, she oversees efforts to increase opportunities for physical activity through community engagement in policies, systems and environmental changes.

Ms. Brown has raised and/or leveraged more than $30 million dollars to advance equity across the state of Colorado. She speaks locally, regionally, nationally and internationally to demonstrate the importance of grassroots involvement. Ms. Brown knows how to engage populations that may have the impression that healthy lives and communities can only be achieved by those who have money, power, or access.

As a graduate of Regis University, she earned a Masters of Nonprofit Management degree and was a Colorado Trust Fellow. Ms. Brown earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from Langston University, a historically black university in Langston, Oklahoma. She serves on various boards and commissions including the State of Colorado’s Health Equity Commission and the City and County of Denver’s Board of Environmental Health as the vice chair. Ms. Brown is a member of the Denver Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. She is a devote Christian active at the Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church where she serves on the liturgical dance ministry and as a writer for the Christian Scroll newsletter. Her favorite past times are spending time with her family, traveling, shopping and going to sporting events.