Blake Hall

Community Health of South Florida (CHI)

Community Health of South Florida (CHI) has the greatest number of advocates registered into NACHC’s grassroots network of any health center in the state of Florida, thanks in part to the hard work of our December Advocate of the Month.  Anthony “Blake” Hall is the Director of Development and Planning for the health center and a grassroots force to be reckoned with.

Blake first mapped out out a recruitment plan for the health center’s Board, staff and patients.  He started with a key question, asking, "Who can I immediately impact?”  The answer was to enact change from within and work outward in spreading the message.  Blake worked with his MIS (Management Information System) department to develop a PowerPoint presentation about the nuts and bolts of advocacy and trained all the executive staff, including several vice presidents, directors and managers, on how to present it at the staff meetings. 

“We’ve given a million presentations through PowerPoint and personal appearances,” he said, “and it has had a trickle-down effect” into this organization of close to 600 employees. Blake even took it to CHI’s school-based staff and continues to find ways to expand recruitment. Last year, CHI installed computer stations in the lobby of one of their health center sites with a sign urging patients to advocate for strong federal support of Community Health Centers. Blake plans to build on this successful model and empower more patients to use the computers and help spread the message.

Blake not only understands the improtance of grassroots networking, but blends both vision and technology into a successful strategy.  That's why he's our December Advocate of the Month.