Reproductive Rights Archives

Health Care Donors Urged to Take a Stand Amidst Ongoing Funding Cuts

Editor’s Note: As a healthcare provider myself, this statement from Cara V. James, President and CEO of Grantmakers in Health, struck a deep chord. Now is the time for funders to do what they can to mitigate the damage of the US government’s extreme and unprecented withdrawal of funding for health.

Cara V. James, President and CEO of Grantmakers In Health and former Director of the Office of Minority Health at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), urges health care funders to take action to protect health care nationally. (Image Credit: GIH)

This week marks 100 days since the start of the current administration. In that time, we have experienced a wave of harmful policies; devastating funding cuts; significant federal workforce reductions; and direct threats to freedom of speech, democracy, and the rule of law. As a country, we have witnessed the use of unlawful executive actions to intimidate, restrict, or punish organizations for addressing important societal challenges. While much remains uncertain, it is clear these changes will not make us healthier, and they threaten the foundation of our democracy. In the end, it is people—especially the most vulnerable—who will suffer the consequences.

State University Receives Biggest Grant Ever–From A Woman

The University of Rhode Island received a gift of $65 million from the estate of the late Helen Izzi Schilling, a 1954 graduate of the University.

This is a transformational gift that will support scholarships for high-achieving students. It is the largest in the University’s history. Through a commitment made with her late husband, the gift establishes the Helen Izzi Schilling ’54 and Francis Schilling Scholars Program.

Tides Foundation is launching Resist Project 2025 in response to the US election results. (Image credit: Tides)

The endowed scholarship will provide up to $20,000 per year for four years to high-achieving undergraduate students majoring in a science, technology, engineering, or math field.

Pivotal’s New $250 Million Open Call for Women’s Health Globally

This past year, we saw how the Biden-Harris administration made large new commitments to addressing women’s health, particularly health research on women. Today, another milestone for change in this arena took place as Pivotal, a Melinda French Gates organization, launched Action for Women’s Health, a $250 million global open call that will fund organizations around the world improving women’s mental and physical health.

“To fully exercise power over their lives, women need to be mentally and physically healthy. And yet, women’s health is being neglected everywhere,” said Melinda French Gates. “More than 1 billion women and girls suffer from malnutrition. Reproductive health care is being denied in the U.S. and other countries. And globally, a woman dies in childbirth every two minutes.”

New Initiative Launches to Bolster Support for Local Abortion Funds

The Frontline Repro Freedom Lab (FRFL) has been launched to provide critical funding and resources to abortion funds in neglected states. This new initiative was founded in response to the overturning of Roe being overturned by the US Supreme Court.

The Frontline Repro Freedom Lab has launched. (Image credit: FRFL website)

FRFL announced its first ventures in an exclusive article in The New Republic. This initiative will partner with Arkansas Abortion Support Network, Prairie Abortion Fund and the Wild West Access Fund of Nevada. These three funds provide desperately needed care for five states.

These organizations will receive grants, resources, and first hand practical expertise designed to build the organizational capacity of each group, which will allow them to maximize impact within their respective areas. The goal is to call for a collective effort that will allow more sustainable investment.

Where You Live Matters, and More Gender Lens Giving News

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to choose where we live. For most people, the decision often depends on employment: people relocate to a place with a better economy to find a job, or as a necessary step to start working at a new job. After college, I relocated from my home state of Michigan to Boston because the economy was much more robust. It has been my good fortune because the decision has worked out very well. While working remotely is not a universally available option, whether due to the nature of the work, like a nurse or a mechanic, it is easier to do and more widely available than ever before.

Lisa Pino is the new COO of Food for the Hungry (Image credit: Food for the Hungry)

And where we live has repercussions beyond the availability of jobs. Quality of life issues matter. Diversity, inclusion, and acceptance of lifestyle matter. Access to quality health care really matters. Health care includes reproductive rights and reproductive rights is more than being able to make your own decisions about your body. For example, how does your state of residence rank in terms of being a good place to have a baby?

What Makes An Idea Valuable? Feminist Giving Explores

Have you ever wondered why, if we care so much about gender equality in the US, we make no progress on basic indicators like wage equality, which has been at a virtual standstill since 1994?

*Feminist Giving* explores the terrain of how we give for gender equality.

One of the themes that my book, Feminist Giving, explores is the question of what makes certain ideas valuable, so valuable that they enter the mainstream of culture and become practiced in significant behavior changes.

The book demonstrates that what philanthropy does to change its behavior is very much a mirror of the rest of society. Sadly, the book concludes that it’s still a man’s world, and philanthropy remains a part of that problem.

Get Your Copy of Feminist Giving, and Send in Your Reviews!

It’s official! Feminist Giving: Creating New Frontiers in Social Change is now available as a hardcover book! Grab your copy on Lulu to give the biggest resource boost to Philanthropy Women!

Feminist Giving is out! Get your copy today!

You can also buy the book on Kobo, or Amazon. This book is packed with the latest and greatest information from the feminist giving sphere. Loaded with interviews and insights from some of philanthropy’s top voices, Feminist Giving is a comprehensive look at modern feminist philanthropy and the themes, campaigns, and people leading the charge in transforming our world.

Review the Book on Amazon, Kobo, and Lulu

At this time, we’re also asking for your reviews! We want to hear everything you thought about Feminist Giving. You can add a review wherever you buy the book: Amazon, Kobo, and Lulu. You can also give us a shout-out on sites like Goodreads to help spread the word about this unique and groundbreaking book.

Activist and Expert Allison Fine: Roadmap for Post-Roe Philanthropy

Elizabeth Warren has described the decades-long fight to protect Roe as standing high up on a ledge, and every year the ledge has gotten smaller and smaller. The upcoming SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe v. Wade removes the last sliver of the ledge.

Allison Fine at a pro-choice rally in Tarrytown, New York on May 14, 2022. (Image credit: Allison Fine)

Overturning Roe has been the goal of the reactionary Right: to whitewash America by oppressing women and people of color. It’s not a byproduct of their relentless 40-year effort to turn back the clock, it is the point.

To be clear, women living in states like Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alabama have been living in a post-Roe world for a while. Still, it’s one thing not to have limited access, it’s another to be imprisoned for murder.

If Roe V. Wade Ends, What Should Feminist Funders Do?

What a disturbing time for humanity. It turns out that several of our new Supreme Court justices are outright liars about their commitment to Roe. v. Wade as the law of the land. As a result, we are now facing the end of legal abortion care in the U.S. What should funders of a pro-choice world do?

Doctors and activists gathered at the state Capital in Rhode Island recently to protest the draft new SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. (Image credit: Womxn Project)

That’s a big question, but it all comes down to increasing funding for women. If we increase funding for women, particularly women’s health care and women in political leadership, we can increase the ability for women to control their own lives. These are two of the most significant areas that need more funding, if we want to solve the problem of access to abortion.

Why We Were So Easily Fooled by Hugh Hefner + Feminist Giving News

Hello there, my philanthro-friends. Welcome to another week of feminist giving updates, as well as other revelations in the world of gender equality news.

playboy feminist giving — Holly Madison, former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner and creator and star of Girls Next Door, discusses her diagnosis of Aspergers in Secrets of Playboy, and how she was drawn to living at the Playboy mansion early on because it gave her a sense of community. (Image credit: Secrets of Playboy)

This week, I did it. I binge-watched the first six episodes of Secrets of Playboy on A&E.

I did it for a lot of reasons. First, because I care about women, especially women who have survived trauma and are trying to make peace with that trauma and with the world that allowed it to happen.

Category: Reproductive Rights