TUFTS University - Friedman School of Nutrition
The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University is the only graduate school of nutrition in the United States. The school is the recognized leader in competencies around childhood nutrition, evaluation as well as dissemination efforts.

Phase I - Shape Up Somerville(SUS), "Eat Smart. Play Hard"
SUS was a three year, groundbreaking, community based environmental change intervention designed to prevent obesity in culturally diverse, high-risk, early-elementary school children. The program was led by Tufts professor, Dr. Christina Economos and began with initial funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This model intervention was aimed at assessing and reducing obesity across Somerville, MA. Foundation funding provided support for essential data collection and analysis, website development, curricula dissemination and wide scale distribution of study findings.

The initiative was a comprehensive, public health intervention through partnerships with school administrations, local government, recreation departments and health departments in a tiered and coordinated effort. The program's priorities were to raise awareness about healthy lifestyles, increase program availability and expand services in the community to support measurable improvements in healthy behavior.

The outcomes were promising: a program director and assistant directors were hired for Shape Up; a School Wellness policy was adopted and implemented in June 2006; a wellness curriculum was placed on the school's website for grades 1-3; resources and services were replicated to train communities nationwide; bike and walking path extensions were created throughout City of Somerville; Shape Up presentations focused on ethnically diverse communities and after-school programs were held at five scientific meetings.

Phase II - Children In Balance
Building on the previous success of the Shape Up Somerville program, PepsiCo Foundation continued its partnership with Tufts. Phase II of this project was set for applying and testing the first major, community-based, multi-intervention effect, with a goal of encouraging communities to promote healthy eating and increased physical activity for children.

Several key outcomes were associated with the project: Shape Up was recognized as the premier US community prevention model, and one of three global research interventions. One hundred after-school programs were taught to implement the Healthy Eating, Active Time (HEAT) Club curriculum effectively, both in person and online. The Children in Balance HEAT Club is designed to improve eating habits and increase physical activity levels for elementary school children in after-school care programs. The HEAT club curriculum includes 26 hands-on activities to use with the children, family tip sheets (translated in Haitian Creole, Portuguese and Spanish) and additional resources on nutrition.

Nine papers were published in peer journals and there were 37 educational discussions in communities around the country by faculty, students and staff who participated in the program. Five partnerships were created with Save the Children, WFD Inc., Project Bread, United Way of Massachusetts Bay, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Major League Soccer. The project's success attracted nearly $1,000,000 in added funding. Application and success of the Community Intervention Model was highlighted in a front page article in the Wall Street Journal, "As Child Obesity Surges, One Town Finds Way to Slim"

Oxford Health Alliance (OxHA)
OxHA's is a registered UK charity, with a mission to improve the health and well being of populations through health promotion and disease prevention. Working with partners such as the National Institute for Health, OxHA seeks to advance scientific knowledge and communication regarding best practices. OxHA enables collaboration between experts and activists from a wide range of disciplines in order to raise awareness and change behaviors, policies and perspectives about healthy lifestyles at every level of society.

Community Interventions for Health (CIH)
The goal of the Community Interventions for Health project is to reduce chronic disease by targeting the three main risk factors: diet, physical activity level and tobacco use. This model embodies the Foundation's global priority investment preference. CIH is being implemented through integrated interventions and grassroots efforts across communities in India, China, Mexico and the UK to effectively drive policy and create environmental changes. CIH is mobilizing community organizations, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods and health organizations to create key programs that seek to create healthier habits and opportunities.

China Women's Development Foundation (CWDF)
CWDF is a Chinese registered, non-profit organization founded in 2000 and chartered in 2004 under the auspices of the All China Women's Federation which is a powerful, highly visible and well respected quasi-governmental body created at the ministry level in the late 1940's. CWDF is centralized with regional offices at the provincial and county and village levels responsible for project implementation. CWDF's mission is to address severe water shortage, improve quality of life and promote women's development by lessening the impact of drought in western and central China.

Water Cellars for Mothers (WCFM)
This project is entirely focused around increasing awareness and availability of safe and sustainable drinking water in poor rural villages in central and western China. WCFM is designed to build capacity using a watershed management solutions approach to expand CWDF's repertoire of rainwater harvesting techniques, and to ultimately help communities obtain water and teach them to improve the safety of this water through treatment.

Currently in Jianying Village in the Northwestern Gansu province, they are installing a rooftop harvesting model to help villages better collect rain water. Since rainfall is very scarce, this will improve the quality of the water collected even prior to filtration.

In subtropical Southwest Sichuan province's Huanying – a high mountainside village - a "town water system model" is being innovated and installed bringing water directly into over 600 homes from one mountain top source. In order to educate and spread awareness among these communities, China Women's Development Foundation has distributed course books, 20 discs, 8,000 pamphlets of Drinking Water Hygiene in rural area in the project sites.

The women's federations are working together to provide training for the local villages and the beneficiaries. These activities of training, education on health and sanitation have improved the health awareness of the beneficiary villagers and their sanitary habits. They have also built a good basis for improving their live qualities after solving the problem of drinking water.

National Council of La Raza
Together with NCLR in 2001, PepsiCo Foundation created the NCLR Escalera Project: Taking Steps to Success to stem the tide and close the gap of Latino high school drop out encouraging at-risk Latino high school students to graduate from high school, prepare for college, and explore career opportunities through internships.

The Foundation's original intent was to co-develop a best practice education program model which can be rolled out in all of NCLR's 300 nation-wide affiliates. This remains the goal today as the program continues to be expanded and replicated across the nation.