What Tinder has done for love lives, Porcha Grigsby’s App for Black Girl Health has the potential to do for healthy lives. Instead of meeting over drinks to find a love connection, users of her app will be able to meet up for exercise or to find someone to be a diet accountability buddy–a health connection.
Grigsby, a former reporter for WGAL, founded Black Girl Health in 2014 after battling fibroids and realizing that not only did she want to become more health conscious herself, but also that she wanted to help other Black women.
“I saw a lot of Black women getting hysterectomies at a young age. People die for a lack of knowledge,” she said. That led her to create an article-based platform centered around promoting health awareness for Black women.
Since then, along with the for-profit Black Girl Health digital marketing and outreach organization, she also started the non-profit Black Girl Health Foundation. While the two are related, they also have quite different missions.
BGH focuses on digital media, health awareness, and is 8(a) certified, which is a federal government certification that allows it to do business with government agencies. It offers professional memberships to health care providers and businesses who gain audience while also providing expertise for the organization’s content. It will also be the home for the Black Girl Health app, which will be free for basic users. The app will allow users from across the country to find health professionals, will provide live and recorded videocasts of everything from discussions on a specific health topic to live yoga classes to nutrition sessions, and will help users to match with like-minded individuals who share interests while providing a platform for in-person meetups in their community.
The BGH Foundation, meanwhile, is mainly focused on outreach—providing workshops for underserved Black women around the country facilitated by its college ambassadors, and working with community partners to improve the health of Black women in urban communities. Three of its biggest programs are the Minds Matter (helping women and girls of color live healthy lifestyles through education, engagement, and empowerment), The Superwoman Project (helping new mothers in every aspect of their lives), and I’m A Survivor (a 30-day campaign every October focused around breast cancer awareness). Exercise and nutrition are key components.
The BGH Foundation also recently launched the BGH Clinic for Women’s Health in Oxon Hill, MD, the BGH Clinic for Women’s Health, which offers telehealth and some in-person mental health services.
Although the clinic is in Maryland—and Grigsby herself lives in White Plains, MD, with her husband and 4-year-old son—Black Girl Health has an office in Harrisburg, where Grigsby lived when she worked for WGAL as Porcha Johnson. Don’t let these brick and mortar buildings fool you—the reach for Black Girl Health and BGH Foundation is much, much larger. While many professional members, newsletter subscribers, and social media followers are in the Central Pennsylvania and Maryland areas, BGH has members and followers everywhere from the West Coast to Texas to New Jersey.
Patrice Guzman, the college ambassador program manager for BGHF, estimates that the organization currently reaches more than 10,000-15,000 women a year through its multitude of programming and online resources. Guzman, who also obtains grants for the organization, says, “I really just believe in the mission and the work that we’re doing. Although we’re a really small organization right now, we definitely have the potential to grow into a powerful resource within the different communities we serve.”
The sense of community Grigsby has been cultivating is what Montrella Cowan, a holistic licensed psychotherapist, certified life coach, author, and speaker from Washington, D.C., already appreciates about Black Girl Health. As a professional partner (for a fee of $100/year), Cowan said BGH is “good at building relationships and has a track record of success…There’s a community. It’s a movement,” Cowan said. “Definitely, it’s forged a community standing for health and wellness in the Black community.”
This past June, Black Girl Health Foundation was one of 50 recipients of the Black Women Impact grants program, part of the One Million Black Women initiative by Goldman Sachs to fund Black women-led and Black women-serving nonprofits. What that means is that BGH Foundation will share in $10 million worth of grants ranging from $50,000-$250,000 for each of the next two years. It was chosen from among 800 applicants.
It’s clear that BGH and BGHF are bringing women together and creating community. Looking for a health partner? Swipe right.
One of BGH’s signature events, the National Kickstart Health and Wellness Program, will return to live programming in June 2023 (the last was pre-Covid in 2019) with a health and wellness expo in Washington, D.C. To learn more about this, other events, and the two organizations, go to blackgirlhealth.com or blackgirlhealthfoundation.org.
Black Girl Health
Instagram: @blkgirlhealth