A Long Game: Kaiser Permanente and SCORES

Part 3 in our Partnership Series

Neelesh Kenia, MD, has been on the SCORES board for nearly a decade. He's a pediatrician, Chief of Outpatient Pediatrics at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco, and the way he talks about SCORES sounds a lot like the way Kaiser talks about medicine. Prevention. Equity. Getting to kids before the problems become harder to solve.

Alec Rosenberg joined the SCORES Cup as a Kaiser employee and unabashed soccer enthusiast. He's captained Corporate Cup teams, served on the Cup Committee, and become one of the more vocal advocates for SCORES among his colleagues. But when he describes what first drew him into SCORES, he paints a specific image—the courage of kids standing up in front of a crowd and reading their own poems aloud. What's accumulated in Neelesh’s and Alec’s experience, over fifteen years of Kaiser funding, event sponsorships, field investments, and Cup teams, is a depth of connection that reflects something real about what Kaiser Permanente and SCORES are each trying to do—and for whom.

"Both organizations are really focused on overall health—on equity, on community, on people that are traditionally underserved, and on prevention rather than treatment. Both are trying to look at the things we can do to prevent various both physical and mental illnesses in the future, rather than waiting till those happen and then trying to deal with them,” explains Neelesh.

How It Started, and What It's Grown Into

Kaiser Permanente's Community Benefit teams fund youth development and prevention programs as part of their nonprofit hospital obligations, a mandate that makes organizations like SCORES a natural fit for grant consideration. But what turned a funding relationship into a genuine partnership was something less procedural: people.

Neelesh Kenia joined the SCORES board a decade ago, drawn in through his dual role as a Kaiser physician and a parent who believed in what the program was doing. Alec Rosenberg, a Senior Communications Consultant at Kaiser Permanente, came to SCORES through the Corporate Cup, and has since become one of its most enthusiastic advocates—captaining a Kaiser team, serving on the Cup Committee, and evangelizing the program among colleagues.

Kaiser Giving

Kaiser contributed $20,000 in 2019, then $25,000 annually in 2020 and 2021 for physical health programming and again in 2022, specifically for mental health initiatives. More recently, Kaiser has focused on event-based sponsorships: two $7,500 sponsorships covering the San Francisco health fairs and the San Rafael Copita. Separately, Kaiser was part of the Bay Area Host Committee that secured $100,000 for the MLK field, a significant and distinct contribution reflecting the scope of the organizational relationship beyond any single grant cycle.

Why SCORES?

Alec Rosenberg joined the Kaiser Cup team because he plays soccer and someone asked him. He stayed because of what he found. “Kaiser Permanente is a really big organization, but I've found people who play soccer, and they've just been so enthusiastic about playing in the Corporate Cup. It helps build our community.” That community-building runs in both directions. One of his favorite parts of SCORES is seeing the Poet-Athletes recite their poems at the Corporate Cup. “They're so proud, and it's just so great to see that. They have such poise. It's really inspiring,"

So inspiring, Alec was compelled to write and perform his own poem for the Kaiser team he captained, poetry becoming a vehicle to connect with his teammates, many of whom he hadn’t known before the tournament.

Alec Rosenberg, reading his poem to his Kaiser Corporate Cup teammates

Creating meaningful engagement opportunities is similarly important to Kaiser. Kaiser, Neelesh explains, is not primarily interested in galas or sponsorship visibility. It wants evidence that a program is meaningfully changing the daily lives of the kids it serves, at a meaningful scale. "What Kaiser really wants to give money to is stuff that involves us rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty in the community,” he explains. “They want to make sure that we are truly reaching underserved communities and making a real impact.”

Scale matters to Kaiser, but it's a means, not an end. Quality has to accompany reach. Neelesh recalls a retired Kaiser grants manager who used to benchmark other applicants against SCORES as a working standard for what impact-driven youth programming should look like.

The Physician Lens

As a pediatrician, Neelesh Kenia brings a clinical foundation to the SCORES board, one that informs how he thinks about the program's value. He and Andres Marin, the other physician on the SCORES board, focus less on the organizational machinery and more on what kids are actually experiencing on the field and on the page. “Our focus is this: How do we make sure that what we're offering to kids is something they’re enjoying? Because if they’re enjoying it, they’re consuming it, and if they’re consuming it, that will produce positive benefits. And that’s relevant whether it’s from a physical health standpoint, a mental health standpoint, or a confidence standpoint,” he says.

The Power of Creativity

That framing—engagement as a prerequisite for benefit—permeates the partnership. Alec Rosenberg, who writes and thinks about creativity professionally, describes the intrinsic qualities that soccer and poetry share. “They both tap into creativity,” he says. “Sports teach us so much—teamwork, discipline, how to deal with adversity. And the writing, poetry in particular, demands reflection. For me, poetry is very personal. It's mostly a chance to reflect, to express myself concisely but in meaningful ways.”

“With SCORES, the writing and soccer activities become part of the students’ identity, “ he explains. “They're trying to figure out who they are, and poetry helps them explore that.”

What Fifteen Years Looks Like

What has kept this partnership going across fifteen years is a specific set of people who kept showing up. Neelesh reflects on his own tenure on the board—through the contractions and expansions, the new faces and the reinvigorated energy. “What I've learned is that ultimately, if we focus on what we're actually trying to do and who we're trying to help, then both SCORES and Kaiser win. If we keep focusing on the kids, I think that's the most important thing,” he says.

Rosenberg, for his part, keeps it simple. “When we are supporting SCORES, we're supporting our future. There's so much possibility in our youth. SCORES really nurtures their growth through soccer, poetry, and service. And we need more poet-athletes."

Ange Bailey, SCORES Chief Engagement Officer, says SCORES’ partnership with Kaiser Permanente has become a cornerstone of the organization’s work. “What has remained constant through every stage of our growth is our deep mission alignment. We are both relentlessly focused on ensuring kids have the tools to live healthy, physically active, and emotionally resilient lives. “ Those shared values keep the relationship vibrant, she explains. “One of the most rewarding aspects of this partnership is the way we engage with Kaiser staff across so many different levels of their organization. Whether we are collaborating with their community health teams on grant and sponsorship processes, or receiving strategic guidance from Neelesh, there’s a consistent spirit of giving back that defines their culture. We see that energy in their amazing staff who show up to compete in our annual Corporate Cup soccer tournaments and work our community health fairs and Copitas. It’s rare to find a partner so holistically committed to the community,” she says.