The mission of Coaction Institute is to build community and institutional capacity for working together to address the underlying social determinants that drive inequities and influence health.

Coaction Institute evolved from  the work of Dory Magasis Escobar in community building, organizing, coalition building, and grassroots leadership development in Northern California and El Salvador for nearly three decades. According to Dr. Kevin Barnett, of the Public Health Institute, "...Ms. Escobar's accomplishments are among the most innovative in the country. Her engagement and mobilization of diverse community stakeholders, the effective leveraging of hospital charitable resources, and the design and implementation of programs and campaigns that community members view as their own is both impressive and rare. "

Initially coming together under Dory's leadership in Escobar & Associates, a team of consultants with decades of experience in U.S., Central and South America provided technical assistance to local and global partners. It became clear that our ongoing focus to building capacity to create inclusive healthy communities was through a mission that is more fitting with a nonprofit framework than that of a consulting agency.  And so was born Coaction Institution, as a fluid evolution of our long-term individual and collective efforts.