ACRO’s Site Resource Grants are designed to serve as seed funding to help clinical research sites explore innovative strategies for improving clinical trial enrollment. Each grant allows the grantee site to enact a 12-month pilot project designed to educate and engage with their unique local community.
For Randomize Now, a clinical research site based in College Park, Georgia, the grant provides an opportunity to deepen connections within the surrounding community and incorporate more diverse voices into clinical research. Their pilot program set out to achieve two key goals:
- Grow a participant database through free health screenings.
- Build relationships with local physicians who have never before been involved in clinical research.
The initiative focuses on southern Fulton County, where Randomize Now serves predominantly Black communities that have long faced systemic barriers to clinical research participation. By offering no-cost health screenings, the site aims to enroll 100 new participants and five new physicians into its program.
This dual approach, engaging both patients and providers, is central to Randomize Now’s strategy. Educating local physicians not only opens the door for new referral pathways but also helps foster trust among community members who are often unfamiliar with, or skeptical of, clinical research. In turn, building a larger, more representative participant pool expands the capacity for Randomize Now to match individuals with relevant trials and care opportunities.
For the Randomize Now team, the most exciting part of the pilot is its springboard potential. Hitting their recruitment targets would mark clear success, but the broader goal is sustaining growth – demonstrating a model that can attract future investment, can be scaled in other communities, and continues to reduce barriers in clinical trial participation. Ultimately, the team hopes their efforts will help contribute to a broader shift in the research ecosystem. Strengthening community-based sites not only expands trial access, but also helps to rebuild trust, reshape perception, and move the industry closer to equity in clinical research.
