Case Study: Funders for Birth Justice and Equity
A collaborative of funders and community-based organizations working together to end inequities in birth outcomes and improve experiences and outcomes for all birthing people.
The group brings together funding professionals, philanthropies, and birth justice leaders to organize, learn, and take collective action within the broader Reproductive and Birth Justice ecosystem.
We supported the collaborative through a comprehensive, trust-centered strategic planning and organizational design process.
Our work included:
Facilitating trust-building across funders and community-based leaders
Conducting an environmental scan and field-level trends analysis
Clarifying mission, theory of change, and strategic priorities
Redesigning governance and operating structures to support shared leadership and participatory decision-making
Aligning team priorities and operational practices with the agreed strategy
Planning and facilitating retreats and key convenings
Managing the change process and addressing underlying tensions as they emerged
The process was intentionally designed to surface and navigate power dynamics rather than bypass them.
As a newly formed collaborative, the group needed to establish a clear foundation for working together across significant differences in power and role.
They sought to clarify their mission, theory of change, and strategic focus within a vast and complex field—while also creating governance structures that enabled funders and community-based organizations to share power equitably.
Key questions included:
How do we create a truly collaborative space that includes both funders and community-based organizations?
What is the appropriate role of philanthropy within the Reproductive and Birth Justice ecosystem—at both national and state levels?
How should foundations, individual donors, and intermediaries participate in strategy and governance?
Are our governance and decision-making structures adequately redistributing power to non-philanthropic stakeholders?
They needed to move forward without replicating the very inequities they were working to address.
Our impact:
The collaborative established a shared strategic foundation grounded in equity, clarity, and mutual accountability.
They emerged with a clear role within the Reproductive and Birth Justice ecosystem, governance structures that more equitably distributed power, and increased capacity for shared leadership across funders and community-based organizations. Most importantly, the group developed the trust and clarity needed to act collectively without compromising their values.