Don’t Try to Reinvent the Wheel: Lessons from the Ongoing Rush to Support Abortion Care

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Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has given far-right state governments permission to ban abortion (for the non-wealthy, anyway), the National Abortion Federation’s hotline for people seeking abortion care — and the hotline’s fund that helps patients access the care they need — offers some valuable lessons. 

The hotline is one of several long-established services created to help pregnant people weigh and pursue all of their options, including terminations. The National Abortion Federation (NAF), a professional association of abortion care providers, was founded in 1977. Its hotline for patients launched in 1978, and the hotline fund was established in 2009 when NAF noticed a strong uptick in calls from people needing not just information, but money for everything from travel to the abortion care itself. 

Since the Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned Roe v. Wade, a lot of people with good intentions have sought ways to assist people seeking abortion care. But instead of offering to support individuals directly with everything from a ride to a couch to crash on, or by starting new organizations, NAF Chief Program Officer Melissa Fowler told me that “people really need to step back and understand that there’s an infrastructure and a network in place that’s been doing this for many years, and find ways to plug in” to those existing networks.

NAF isn’t the only longstanding organization out there with deep expertise helping patients navigate the increasingly fraught hurdles standing between them and the care they need. In addition to Planned Parenthood, other well-established groups include In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, which partners with eight state-level Black women’s reproductive justice organizations; The Brigid Alliance, a referral-based service providing logistical support including travel, food and child care to people in need of abortions; and All-Options Talkline (888-493-0092), a peer-based counseling and support hotline that has been helping pregnant people since 2004.

In other words, there’s no need to reinvent this wheel. Instead, funders need to continue providing resources and energy to the organizations that already exist to get patients the care and resources they need. 

Another fact to bear in mind is that while several foundations are still hiding or downplaying their support for this basic human right — as we reported last year — not all institutional funders treat their reproductive rights grants like a dirty little secret. In mid-July, for example, the Katz Amsterdam Foundation announced $2 million in funding to 11 organizations that support reproductive rights, including $250,000 to the National Abortion Federation. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation also lists its support for the National Abortion Federation in its grants database

Foundations that seek to downplay their reproductive rights support by giving quietly or anonymously, on the other hand, do little to dispel the threats that the religious right may bring to bear. As long as they’re giving via regular 501(c)(3) grants, they can be identified. At the same time, they forgo the chance to counter those threats with the public support that giving openly could afford them.

Fowler, however, didn’t have a word of criticism for funders who remain anonymous, saying instead that “especially at this crisis moment, we know people choose to be anonymous for a variety of reasons. And we are very appreciative of that support.” Nevertheless, NAF remains commited as an organization to the importance of “destimatizing abortion, destigmatizing abortion providers, and showing public support for them,” Fowler said. According to NAF, in addition to “many” of its foundation funders, roughly 25% of the individuals who give to the organization also ask to remain anonymous. 

The creativity of some of the fundraising for NAF has also been a pleasant surprise. The Force is with a group of “Star Wars” fans, for example, who have used the common bonds of their fandom community to raise nearly $50,000 for NAF as of this writing, while tabletop and other gamers have live streamed themselves while soliciting donations—with one effort alone raising $101,000

Donors with small businesses are selling special editions of their wares including tattoos, stickers and yoga classes. NAF has even been approached by people interested in donating cryptocurrency to the hotline. “Our Twitter is just flooded” with individuals and groups finding creative ways to support the federation and its hotline, Fowler said. NAF shared that post-Dobbs-leak donations skyrocketed by a staggering 14,000% over the same time period in 2021.

The creativity that these smaller donors and outside groups are wielding can and should be an example to institutional funders. If gamers, science fiction fans and tattoo artists can find unique ways to support abortion rights and access, surely full-time funders who care about reproductive rights can spearhead methods to both sustainably increase their annual payouts and move money more quickly to organizations in need. 

As IP’s Martha Ramirez reported in June, sustained, consistent support is going to be key — not just for pregnant people in need of immediate abortion care, but to reverse the five decades of concerted conservative effort that brought the country to this point in the first place. Philanthropy’s typical boom-and-bust pattern of crisis funding won’t just be ineffective during this abortion rights crisis; it will prove deadly in the face of the dedication and persistence of the extreme right wing.

Finally, the collective experience of NAF, other reproductive rights organizations, and the individual donors and groups who are currently giving in droves drives home the necessity for philanthropy to start focusing on the long game. Fowler told me that the May leak of the eventual Dobbs decision was a “wake-up call” to funders who have now begun giving for reproductive rights for the first time. 

The surprise of some institutional funders in the face of Roe’s fall is galling in the face of the very long, and very public, campaign against abortion rights by religious and political extremists. Today — and for decades before the election of the previous Republican president — grassroots groups have sounded the alarm about accelerating dangers to everything from reproductive and voting rights and our environment to the ineffectiveness and inherent racism in our country’s criminal justice system. 

Yet, each time one of these or many other crises hits a tipping point, philanthropy as a whole has been caught on its collective back foot. If philanthropy chooses to learn just one lesson from the developments of recent years, it should be that it’s long past time for large funders to dedicate at least a portion of their budgets to meeting and defeating future crises before they occur. The sector can start by finding, and heeding, advice from organizations on the ground that are closest to the issues.