Hopestar Foundation

As a health advocate with over ten years of experience in maternal and child health, Elizabeth (Liz) Star established the HopeStar Foundation in 2011 to address health and social inequities confronting children in Charlotte and the surrounding area. With a foundation built on strong Jewish values and knowledge of how systemic disparities affect families, the foundation focuses on the health and development of children and families, with an emphasis on the prenatal to five years. The foundation collaborates to identify barriers convene experts, propose innovative solutions, and fund pilot programs to test creative approaches. As Jews, the value of Tikkun Olam commands us to repair the world, and it is through this lens that the foundation focuses its philanthropy. The HopeStar Foundation approaches this work with the following ideals: • Focus on Whole Child Development: We take a comprehensive approach to investing in health, education, and supports for families to ensure young children have the best chances for prosperity and well-being. • Promote a Strong Statewide Voice: We collaborate with organizations to advocate for whole child development and whole family success through convening, capacity building, and programs where health and education intersect. • Build Healthy Systems: We establish, support, and help scale sustainable initiatives to create innovative partnerships and build capacity within and between systems to better serve all children and families. • Keep Equity at the Center: We analyze our work and ideas through an equity lens that requires a continual process of learning, disaggregating data, and questioning historical policies that create barriers for people of color and under-resourced populations.