Quick Summary

Bronson partnered with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to transform its Multi-Sectoral Partnerships to Promote Healthy Living and Prevent Chronic Disease program.

The work was delivered for PHAC’s Partnership and Strategies Division (PSD), which manages roughly $27 million in annual funding for primary prevention health interventions.

Bronson reviewed 40 previously funded interventions and developed a structured Intervention Framework with 14 key elements to guide future funding decisions.

In parallel, Bronson documented 10 As-Is and To-Be business processes using Business Process Model Notation (BPMN), covering the program’s full lifecycle from intervention identification to project close-out.

The Intervention Framework and To-Be processes were adopted by PSD to sharpen funding decisions, reduce administrative burden on applicants, and guide technology implementation.

Project Overview

The Partnership and Strategies Division (PSD) of the Public Health Agency of Canada funds multi-sectoral partnerships through its Multi-Sectoral Partnerships to promote healthy living and prevent chronic disease program. The program supports primary prevention interventions designed to change behaviour and improve population health outcomes.

PSD was looking to do two things at once: improve the quality and effectiveness of the interventions it funded, and streamline its internal business processes to reduce administrative burden on applicants. Both objectives connected back to a single underlying need. PSD wanted a more structured way to make funding decisions and a more efficient way to deliver the program behind those decisions.

PHAC engaged Bronson to develop business model archetypes for the program’s public health interventions and to identify program improvements that would increase the performance of funded work. The engagement was structured around two parallel workstreams, each addressing one half of the challenge while reinforcing the other.

The Challenge

PSD’s challenge was both strategic and operational. Better decisions about which interventions to fund required a stronger analytical foundation. Better delivery of those decisions required cleaner, more efficient processes. Both had to advance together.

The main challenges Bronson tackled:

  • Inconsistent intervention evaluation. PSD was funding diverse public health interventions across different objectives and target populations without a common analytical structure to compare them.
  • Decision-making at scale. With approximately $27 million in annual investment at stake, PSD needed a framework that could support consistent, evidence-based funding decisions year after year.
  • Administrative burden on applicants. PSD’s end-to-end processes, from identifying funding candidates through to project close-out, were creating unnecessary friction for the partners the program was meant to support.
  • Process inefficiency. Internal workflows had not been optimized for speed or efficiency, and there was no shared documentation of how the program actually ran end to end.
  • Multi-stakeholder alignment. Process redesign required consensus across PSD program staff with different responsibilities, expertise, and operating perspectives.

PHAC needed a structured framework to guide funding decisions and a clear, validated picture of how the program ran today and how it should run tomorrow.

Our Solution

Bronson designed a two-track engagement that addressed strategy and operations in parallel, with each workstream informing the other. The work was organized into the following streams:

  1. Review of Previously Funded Interventions – Bronson conducted a comprehensive review and analysis of 40 interventions previously funded by PSD. The review surfaced common business model archetypes across diverse interventions and provided the empirical foundation for a structured decision-making framework.
  2. Intervention Framework Development – Drawing on a modified version of the Business Canvas Model and research on behavioural change, Bronson developed an Intervention Framework with 14 key elements tied to business objectives and public health outcomes. The framework gave PSD a consistent, structured lens for evaluating candidates for funding across very different intervention types.
  3. Identification of Program Business Processes – Bronson identified 10 business processes spanning PSD’s full program lifecycle, from intervention identification through funding, project management, and close-out. These became the focus of the process improvement workstream.
  4. As-Is Process Documentation in BPMN – A series of workshops were conducted to validate and reach stakeholder consensus on the As-Is processes. Business Process Model Notation (BPMN) was used as the working artifact during the workshops, anchoring discussion and validating process accuracy in real time.
  5. To-Be Process Design – A second set of workshops identified opportunities to streamline the processes through removal of redundant steps and strategic use of technology. The result was a documented set of To-Be processes designed to reduce administrative burden on applicants and support more efficient internal program delivery.

Key Deliverables

  • Review and Analysis of 40 Previously Funded Interventions – A documented review of 40 PSD-funded public health interventions, identifying common business model archetypes and providing the empirical foundation for the Intervention Framework.
  • Intervention Framework with 14 Key Elements – A structured framework, adapted from the Business Canvas Model and grounded in behavioural change research, capturing 14 key elements tied to business objectives and public health outcomes for use in PSD funding decisions.
  • Inventory of 10 PSD Program Business Processes – A defined inventory of 10 business processes covering PSD’s full program lifecycle, scoped through stakeholder engagement and prepared for detailed mapping.
  • As-Is Process Maps in BPMN – Ten As-Is process maps documented in Business Process Model Notation, validated through stakeholder workshops with PSD program staff.
  • To-Be Process Maps in BPMN – Ten To-Be process maps documented in BPMN, identifying opportunities to remove redundant steps and apply targeted technology solutions to streamline the program lifecycle.
  • Process Improvement Recommendations – Documented recommendations attached to the To-Be processes, identifying where technology could be applied to reduce administrative burden and improve program delivery.
  • Stakeholder Workshop Outputs – Workshop documentation, validated decisions, and consensus artifacts from the As-Is and To-Be workshops, providing PSD with a defensible record of the redesign process.

The Impact

PSD adopted both the Intervention Framework and the To-Be processes to advance the Multi-Sectoral Partnerships program. The engagement gave PHAC:

  • A consistent, evidence-based framework for evaluating candidates for funding across approximately $27 million in annual investments.
  • A clear, validated picture of how the program operated end to end, captured in standardized BPMN documentation.
  • A redesigned set of processes targeting reduced administrative burden for applicants and improved internal efficiency.
  • A foundation for technology implementation to manage PSD’s project portfolio more effectively.

The result is a sharper decision-making lens for PSD’s funding work and a more efficient operating model behind it, both grounded in the realities of how the program runs and the public health outcomes it is designed to achieve.

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