With this Fund, decision making power is in the hands of the people and organizations who have lived experience and deep understanding of the barriers they face. Communities that have been consistently impacted by barriers to care hold deep expertise about the effects these disparities have on their lives and are experts when it comes to articulating solutions for them.
To ensure that the dollars from the Reproductive Health Equity Fund are distributed in ways that address impacted communities’ priority needs, the Fund’s Steering Committee gathered multiple rounds of community input in 2022. This input is used by the Fund’s Steering Committee to make bold, community-informed, values-based decisions about how the Fund should be allocated.
Between March and November 2022, the Fund gathered community input from reproductive justice leaders; healthcare providers and researchers; community-based and culturally-specific organizations; and community and traditional health care workers and navigators from around the state.
Through input sessions, community experts identified the need for both immediate resources to support an increase in gaps in service and current workloads as well as the opportunity to use these funds to address needed systemic changes that prioritize programs aimed at addressing the unmet needs of communities most impacted by reproductive health care inequities.