Post-Roe Abortion Crisis Plan: Young People w/ Wealth Mobilizing $1M to Fund Abortion NOW and Long-Term
By the Fund Abortion Now! Team
As of October 24, 2022, the Fund Abortion Now! team has increased our fundraising goal to $2 million to NNAF and their affiliates over 3 years due to the support of RG members and their communities. Thank you for your continued support!
In early 2022 in anticipation of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade (via the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), Resource Generation leaders launched a cross-chapter member-led campaign called “Fund Abortion Now!” We knew this ruling would only exacerbate existing inequalities in abortion across the United States. The fall of Roe would mean that in at least 22 states, abortion would be automatically banned or nearly banned. In fact, as you’re reading this now, it’s likely this has already happened.
The hope of this campaign has been to provide a space for collective political education, organizing, and fundraising in order to ensure that our RG community — and individual donors and class privileged folks more broadly— engage effectively in this moment. We understand that issues like this can be deeply scary for our constituents, but it is essential that we maintain perspective on the real impacts, centering our response around the frontline organizations who are doing and have been doing this work, rather than attempting to “recreate the wheel.” It’s important to remember that the fall of Roe will disproportionately impact poor people, young people, people in rural areas and in the South and Midwest, and people of color. We also know that, for many people, the legal right to abortion has never equaled meaningful access to abortion, and this is simply an escalation of long-standing inequities.
Though chronically underfunded, abortion funds have been a critical part of the abortion access landscape for decades, ensuring sure that people can actually get the abortions they want and need. As abortion access continues to be threatened, these abortion funds will need more resources than ever to facilitate abortion access as well as plan long-term for how to best organize against new restrictions. The Fund Abortion Now! campaign has partnered with a leader in this area, the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF). NNAF is a nationwide network comprised of local abortion funds. Our goal is to fundraise $1 million over the next 3 years from RG members and their networks to support NNAF as well their local affiliates. Since we launched the campaign in March 2022, we have $473,000 pledged over the next 3 years plus $124,000 mobilized this year towards NNAF and their affiliates. Though we’re off to a great start, now more than ever, it is time to show up with our privilege, funds, resources, and hearts to support abortion access.
What does this actually look like?
It is not enough for donors to send a one-time check to just any organization supporting abortion access — the unequal class structures that led to our current Supreme Court exist in “traditional” philanthropy as well. Donors must ensure that we are sustaining intersectional and BIPOC-led reproductive justice in such a way that we do not recreate power systems that led us to the current moment. We must flank frontline movement leaders with unrestricted, reliable funds in order to promote reproductive justice for all peoples.
Here are some concrete donor best practices and additional resources to guide you and your giving in this area:
1. Think carefully before attempting to launch your own project (a new abortion fund, an auntie network, etc.) — there are very likely existing and experienced BIPOC led organizations doing the same work that you can be supporting
2. Support long-term movement building with multi-year funding (we recommend a 3 year commitment)
3. Provide unrestricted general operating funding
4. Prioritize state & local organizations, including networks of state & local organizations rather than large national non-profits
5. If possible, avoid anonymous funding in order to support the destigmitization of abortion and funding abortion access
6. In addition to funding the essential work of abortion funds, be sure to fund other reproductive justice organizations
7. Be mindful of your narrative framing of this moment, and understand why movement leaders are problematizing coat-hanger imagery and the Handmaid’s tale or Underground Railroad metaphors
Here are some additional resources/perspectives on how to best show up as donors for reproductive justice in this moment:
Here’s what you can do right now.
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- Move $$ to abortion funds (& track your redistribution here to be counted towards our campaign total) in any or all of the following ways –
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- Give general operating dollars directly to NNAF at nnaf.org/resourcegeneration
- Give to NNAF’s Collective Power Fund at nnaf.org/resourcegenerationcpf which will be redistributed to member funds
- Give directly to your local Abortion Fund
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- Share our campaign microsite fundabortionnow.us with your networks & encourage them to move $$! We have an outreach toolkit here with graphics & copy available for you to use.
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- Read through the digital zine on fundabortionnow.us to further educate yourself on reproductive justice, the history of abortion access in the US, funding best practices, and more.
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- Stay tuned for summer 2022 programming led by the Fund Abortion Now organizing team.
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- Sign on to this philanthropic pledge to protect abortion access and reproductive justice coordinated by our friends at Groundswell Fund and others.
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- Email [email protected] if you would like to join the organizing team or if you have any questions or comments.
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- Stand with movement partners by joining actions & events. Some other incredible organizations working within the reproductive justice movement include:
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- Volunteer with your local abortion fund.
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Thank you for standing up for abortion access in this current moment. The challenges we are facing are big, but we have the resources to support abortion funds in their powerful response.
In Solidarity,
