Launched in 2010, GoFundMe has served as the go-to social fundraising platform for over a decade. As of this article, with over 120 million donations that span from celebrations to challenging circumstances, the American for-profit noticed a rise in campaigns providing support for Black Maternal Health.
The campaigns come in handy especially during these critical times where funds for midwife tuition, training, and operating costs for Black Maternal Health centers can scarce. As stated in a New York Times article, Black infants in America are now more than twice as likely to die as white infants -- a racial disparity wider than in 1850. According to the CDC, Black mothers die at three to four times the rate of white mothers.
If you would like to help eradicate the disparity and contribute to benefit Black Maternal Health, find below a list of campaigns that aim to highlight this issue and provide resilient and sustainable resources in communities across the U.S. to help combat the systemic racism Black mothers and infants face.
Funds for Communities, Birth Centers, and other Resources/ Support
In-home prenatal, birth and postpartum care largely limit the hospital visits and minimizes exposure to COVID for the expectant family and the newborn. This fund will prioritize Black people and People of Color to reduce exposure to the most vulnerable and provide access to people otherwise unable to afford in-home maternal care.
Nikki Helms is a licensed midwife in California and is one of only four Black midwives in San Diego county. She will be opening a birth center in central San Diego county to make services available to the wider community including those who may not have insurance. Funds raised will be used to secure a space in central San Diego and to purchase equipment.
Fundraising efforts to bring forth a South Los Angeles Birth Center with the mission is to empower women and families by providing quality care, education and support focused on fostering independence and respectfully guiding them through the often challenging journey of pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenting.
The Highland Hospital midwives are calling out an immediate need to support Black birthing families. Money raised will be used for midwife-led initiatives:
- BElovedBIRTH Black Centering, group perinatal care by, for, and with Black people - an innovative new program designed to provide culturally attuned and racially concordant care for Black birthing people.
- Direct monetary support to Black birthing families, gifted directly by the Highland Black midwives in the spirit of community and love. We are inspired by, and give thanks to Asmara Gebre, CNM, a San Francisco midwife who has started a project to gift cash aid to Black families in her care.
Nikki McIver- Brown had the honor of opening the San Antonio Nurse Midwife Birth and Wellness Center in October 2019. The center is one of less than 10 Black-owned birth centers out of 350 in the US. This fund is to help offer free or reduced care to those that need it the most.
The Chicago Birthworks Collective is a collective of wellness practitioners serving Black & Brown women and families across the Chicagoland area. This fund will support the collective’s doula services, postpartum care, lactation support, and more.
Funds for Tuition, Scholarships, and Training: Representation Matters!
June Eric-Udorie, an award-winning writer, activist, and birth doula, now based in Durham, NC. serves as a birth doula to marginalized families in and around Durham, NC. They offer free services to women and birthing people in need of fundraising to provide services.
Fund to support and uplift Raya and Shaquan, two birth workers, so they can continue this important work supporting maternal health for Black women and other Women of Color.
Ujima Maternity Network is Arkansas’ first and only all-Black network of birth workers and advocates launched on December 26, 2018. There are currently no Black midwives in the entire state of Arkansas. Ujima Maternity Network is dedicated to answering the call for the lack of representation.
Fund for Wallace Louis who is a trained Doula in the process of becoming a Nurse-Midwife. Wallace needs help in covering the cost of nine prerequisite courses. Their goal is to apply to combined BSN/MSN programs in August 2021, making my earliest possible graduation date August 2024.
Ruth Blanding, a Doula, student midwife, and holistic practitioner founded Deepest Roots: Birth and Wholistic Wellness in 2012. They are currently fundraising to cover their tuition costs at the Midwifery College of Utah.
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