IMPACT Black Kidney Health
Where Are You in Your Kidney Journey?
Kidney care shouldn't begin when someone sits down in a dialysis chair—and support shouldn't end there.
A Whole-Journey Approach
The IMPACT Kidney Journey Model™ is being developed to help individuals and families find trusted education, practical resources, support, and direction across the kidney journey—from early awareness through kidney disease, dialysis, transplantation, caregiving, and life beyond diagnosis.
Wherever you are in the journey, start where you are.
Where Are You Right Now?
Choose the step that fits your season
I'm Worried About My Kidneys
Start Before the ChairI've Been Diagnosed with Kidney Disease
Help Me Understand What's NextI'm Starting Dialysis
Start At the ChairI'm Already on Dialysis
Help Me Navigate the JourneyI Want to Understand Transplant
Explore Beyond the ChairI'm Caring for Someone with Kidney Disease
Care for the CaregiverI Need Help Finding Trusted Resources
Find Kidney ResourcesI Want to Bring IMPACT to My Church or Community
Bring IMPACT to My CommunityBefore the Chair
Know Earlier. Ask Earlier. Act Earlier.
Before the Chair focuses on kidney-health awareness, understanding risk, knowing appropriate questions to discuss with healthcare professionals, and helping people engage kidney health before a crisis changes everything.
Know Your Numbers
Understanding the key measures of kidney health — and why they matter.
ASK • TEST • KNOW
The questions to ask, the tests to ask about, and what to know before a crisis.
Community Kidney Health Education
Trusted, culturally responsive education brought into community spaces.
Kidney-Risk Education
Understanding the conditions and risk factors that can affect kidney health.
Trusted Kidney-Health Resources
Curated links to authoritative organizations and reliable information.
Engaging Early
Why early awareness and early conversation change the shape of the journey.
At the Chair
Understand Your Care. Find Your Voice.
Starting dialysis can feel like entering an entirely new world. At the Chair is being developed to provide nonclinical education, patient-navigation resources, self-advocacy tools, caregiver support, and practical guidance for people beginning and living with dialysis.
Planned Resources
New to Dialysis
Your First 30 Days
Questions I Didn't Know to Ask
Understanding Your Care Team
Find Your Voice
Resource Navigation
These resources are in development and are not yet available. Until they launch, you can still find trusted, foundational kidney-health information across IMPACT Black Kidney Health and our resource center below.
Beyond the Chair
Kidney Disease Changed Your Life. It Does Not Get to Become Your Entire Life.
Beyond the Chair is being developed to help patients and families find trusted information about treatment options, transplantation, caregiving, self-advocacy, relationships, purpose, and living fully while navigating kidney disease.
Planned Areas
These areas are in development and are not yet available. Until they launch, you can still find trusted kidney-health information across IMPACT Black Kidney Health.
Care for the Caregiver
The patient isn't the only person kidney disease happened to.
Kidney disease can change an entire household. IMPACT is developing resources for spouses, adult children, family members, and others carrying the practical and emotional responsibilities of caregiving.
This pathway is connected to the broader Nicole Washington Ministries Caregiver Support & Education Initiative, which serves caregivers across every kind of long-term need — not only kidney disease.
Community Awareness & Connection
The IMPACT Ambassador Program
Ambassadors help carry kidney-health awareness and connection into trusted community spaces. Within the Kidney Journey Model, Ambassadors position the work as Community Awareness & Connection — the people who help the model reach farther than any single location.
Share approved kidney-health education
Increase awareness in their community
Connect people with trusted resources
Support community conversations
Help bring IMPACT into churches and communities
Communicate community needs back to IMPACT
IMPACT Church & Community Network
Take the model where trust already lives.
IMPACT is developing a replicable community model designed to equip churches and community organizations with trusted kidney-health education, resources, Ambassador tools, caregiver information, and practical ways to bring kidney-health conversations closer to home.
Potential Future Toolkit Components
IMPACT Digital Kidney Resource Center
Find what you need, based on where you are.
The IMPACT Digital Kidney Resource Center is the growing hub of this Kidney Journey — helping people find what they need based on where they are in the journey. It is a functional component of IMPACT Black Kidney Health, not a separate brand.
IMPACT Black Kidney Health
Education, early-detection awareness, advocacy, and support.
Visit IMPACTKidney Health Now
Current kidney-care topics in the Research & Trends Center.
Explore TopicsTransplant & Living Donation
Foundational information about transplantation and living donation.
Learn MorePatient Voice & Advocacy
Listen before speaking for people.
As IMPACT grows, we plan to create appropriate opportunities to listen to kidney patients and caregivers through community conversations, voluntary feedback, listening sessions, and needs assessment.
Potential Future Components
Patient listening sessions
Caregiver listening sessions
Anonymous needs assessments
Patient-experience surveys
Community conversations
Voluntary stories shared with permission
Identification of recurring barriers
No research or data collection is currently underway — this is a future direction, and no formal research findings or datasets yet exist.
What Makes IMPACT Different
A model built for the whole person
Whole-Journey
Before the Chair. At the Chair. Beyond the Chair.
Culturally Responsive
Designed with Black kidney-health disparities in view.
Lived-Experience Informed
Patient and caregiver realities help shape the model.
Community-Based
Education goes into trusted spaces.
Navigation-Oriented
Information helps people know what to ask and where to turn.
Patient & Caregiver Centered
People are more than diagnoses.
Nonclinical but Healthcare-Connected
Complements qualified healthcare rather than replacing it.
Replicable
Designed to travel farther than one person or one location.
Help Us Build the Model
A scalable model built to reach farther
IMPACT Black Kidney Health is developing a scalable community-based model designed to reach people across the kidney journey—from early awareness through dialysis, transplantation, caregiving, and life beyond diagnosis.
Philanthropic and institutional investment can help us develop curriculum, train community Ambassadors and future Kidney Navigators, create patient and caregiver resources, equip churches and community organizations, build digital tools, measure outcomes, and develop the infrastructure needed to carry this work into more communities.
Invest in a Part of the Journey
Funding opportunities may include
Community Education
Community Kidney Health Education.
Ambassador Development
Training and tools.
Kidney Navigation
Future Navigator curriculum and resource system.
Caregiver Support
Caregiver education and resources.
Digital Resource Center
Kidney-journey education and navigation tools.
Church & Community Toolkit
Replicable resources for trusted institutions.
Patient Voice
Future listening and needs-assessment infrastructure.
Program Evaluation
Measurement of reach, learning, confidence, and resource connection.
Medical Information
IMPACT Black Kidney Health provides education, support, advocacy, and resource navigation. It does not provide medical diagnosis, individualized treatment recommendations, or replace care from qualified healthcare professionals. This boundary applies throughout the entire Kidney Journey Model.
Know Early. Live Strong. You Are Not Alone.
Before the Chair
Know earlier.
At the Chair
Understand your care. Find your voice.
Beyond the Chair
Keep living.
Wherever you are in the kidney journey, there should be a place to begin.