Julián Lazalde (he/him/his) is the Program Manager for Policy and Advocacy at Healthy Communities Foundation (HCF). He leads HCF’s health equity policy activities. Most importantly, as HCF’s primary liaison, Julián supports the individual, organizational, and community leadership of grantee partners in order to build movement and power towards greater health equity in the HCF region.
Julián believes philanthropy can be most impactful by listening intently to the realities of those working in community and with impacted individuals. He feels HCF is a model for how to support organizations and their communities through community-informed, trust-based grantmaking that is focused on harnessing organized money to build power with organized people in order to address health disparities and equity issues.
Prior to joining HCF, Julián was the Civic Engagement & Policy Analyst with the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) where he led NIJC’s local and state-level policy and legislative advocacy initiatives in conjunction with dozens of local, state, and national partners. In conjunction with community partners, Julián served on the policy and legislative advocacy committees that worked to pass and adopt state legislation such as the TRUST Act (2017), VOICES Act (2018), RISE Act (2019), and the Illinois Way Forward Act (2021).
Julián earned his Master’s degree in Public Administration from DePaul University and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Williams College.