Tides Reproductive Justice (RJ) Fund Docket - Fall 2009

Tides Reproductive Justice Fund
Fall 2009 Docket (Public)
Prepared by:
Vanessa Daniel, Philanthropic Advisor

Catherine Lerza, Senior Philanthropic Advisor
Francisco Martinez, Philanthropic Services Associate
Giselle Pérez, Philanthropic Services Associate
Lacy Serros, Community Fellow
Fall 2009 Docket
Table of Contents
Context ..................................................................................................................................................... 1
Cross Movement Work..............................................................................................................................8
Geographic Distribution – Map ................................................................................................................. 9
Geographic Distribution – Data ................................................................................................................ 10
RJ Movement Connections – Who is Working Together? ........................................................................ 11
Scoring Sheet ............................................................................................................................................ 12
Action Sheet .............................................................................................................................................. 13
Organizational Contact List ....................................................................................................................... 14
Organizational Write-Ups
Alaska Community Action on Toxics ......................................................................................................... 20
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice ........................................................................................... 21
California Healthy Nail Salons Collaborative ............................................................................................ 26
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice............................................................................................... 29
Choice USA ............................................................................................................................................... 32
Colorado Org. for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights ............................................................... 35
Faith Aloud ................................................................................................................................................ 38
Generations Ahead ................................................................................................................................... 41
Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health ....................................................................................................... 44
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children ............................................................................................... 47
Migrant Health Promotion ......................................................................................................................... 50
National Advocates for Pregnant Women ................................................................................................. 53
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum ................................................................................... 56
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health ..................................................................................... 59
Native American Community Board .......................................................................................................... 62
Rebecca Project for Human Rights ........................................................................................................... 65
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health .................................................................................... 68
SPARK (formerly Georgians for Choice) .................................................................................................. 71
Western States Center ..............................................................................................................................73
West Virginia Focus: Reproductive Education and Equality ..................................................................... 76
Young Women United ............................................................................................................................... 79
Appendix
Glossary .................................................................................................................................................... 82
WOC United for Health Care Reform Imperatives .................................................................................... 83
Tides Reproductive Justice Fund - Fall 2009 Docket (Public)

Fall 2009 Docket
Context
Political Context
The federal landscape for RJ shifted significantly this year. Much of the shift was positive, but some of it
was unexpectedly challenging and means that the RJ movement must redouble its organizing and
advocacy efforts in the coming year.
To start with the good news: with the advent of a new Administration, Reproductive Justice Fund (RJF)
grantees enjoyed an unprecedented level of access, accepting more than 30 invitations to attend
meetings with White House staff and key leaders in the Administration, including First Lady Michelle
Obama; Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and
Public Engagement; Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Melody
Barnes, the President’s Domestic Policy Advisor; Tino Cuellar of the White House Council on Women and
Girls; Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President’s Domestic Policy Council; and Martha
Coven, of the Office of Mobility and Opportunity.
For the first time, women of color comprise a large proportion of the top advisors to a U.S. President, and
these advisors have been willing to meet with RJ groups and are receptive to their objectives. The first bill
President Obama signed into law was the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which restored legal recourse for
women experiencing pay discrimination. He then rescinded the global gag rule, lifting the ban on US aid
to international health providers who provide abortion care, and repealed the HHS “conscience clause,”
undoing a parting shot of the Bush Administration that had empowered health providers to refuse women
health care based on the provider’s religious or moral views, with no exception for the health of the
woman.
The President’s Omnibus Appropriations Act restored the ability of college and university health centers
to purchase low cost birth control for students, and allocated $300 million to the Indian Health Service to
address sexual violence against Native American women. The Administration re-authorized and
expanded the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), enabling many more low-income children and
pregnant women to receive health care. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act was, after 12 years of
campaigning, finally made law, expanding the definition of hate crimes to include crimes motivated by
actual or perceived gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or mental or physical disability. The Ryan
White Act was extended, enabling community-based organizations to continue to provide HIV treatment
and care, and the prohibition against HIV-positive immigrants entering the U.S. was finally lifted.
Still there were losses and setbacks. In his major address to the nation on healthcare reform, President
Obama stated unequivocally that public dollars would not be used to fund abortions or health care for
“illegal immigrants.” These statements are evidence of the broader vulnerability of all women and all
immigrants in the current political landscape. A few months prior, when Republicans challenged the
inclusion of family planning dollars in the first economic stimulus package (the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act), Democrats offered little resistance and immediately removed these funds from the
Act. And there has been very little done to halt immigration raids that have spiraled out of control in recent
years, terrorizing immigrant communities across the nation and undermining RJ for immigrant women.
Tides Reproductive Justice Fund - Fall 2009 Docket (Public) 1

Health Care Reform: This November, one of the most formidable threats to abortion rights since the
passage of Roe vs. Wade emerged in the healthcare reform bill passed by the House of Representatives.
Initially the House legislation included the Capps Amendment, a compromise between pro-choice and
pro-life members to maintain the status quo on abortion rights by not using health care reform process to
legislate change on abortion rights in either direction. (Note: the status quo is the Hyde Amendment,
which stipulates that no federal funds can be used for abortion care, except in the case of rape, incest, or
life endangerment to the woman.) Maintaining the Hyde restrictions in healthcare reform meant that in the
exchange marketplace, where millions of low and middle income women (earning less than $88,000 for a
family of four) would be able to purchase insurance coverage at a reduced cost, federal funds would not
be used to subsidize abortion care. Specifically, the “public option” plan in that marketplace would comply
with Hyde, and private plans in the market that did offer broader abortion care would draw on women’s
private dollars, rather than federal dollars, to pay for these services.
However, at the eleventh hour, just before the House floor vote, the Catholic Bishops (who had been
major supporters of health care reform) announced they would strongly oppose any legislation that
permitted women to purchase private plans with abortion coverage through the exchange, even if they
were using their own private money to do so. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) introduced an Amendment that met
the Bishops demands and that went much further than Hyde by barring private insurance companies from
offering abortion services through the exchange. Speaker Nancy Pelosi permitted a vote on the Stupak
Amendment on the floor, with the hope that even if it passed in the House, that it would be removed from
a final healthcare reform bill. Fifty four Democrats and all Republicans in the House voted for Stupak. In
total, Stupak bought 10 additional votes to secure passage of the healthcare reform bill in the House.
Since its passage, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) has circulated two sign-on letters in the House. The first,
which has been signed by 40 members, conveys to President Obama and Speaker Pelosi a commitment
to vote against final passage of healthcare reform if the Stupak language remains. This is a significant
development because the loss of those 40 votes would most likely doom reform. Many of the signers,
including one of the first, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), have spent their entire careers working for health care
reform but refuse to pass it on the backs of women. Another letter, with 80 signers, requests a meeting
with the President to discuss Stupak.
If Stupak is included in the final bill, millions of women would lose the level of reproductive health
coverage that they have today (50-80 percent of health insurance plans already offer abortion care),
violating a central tenet of healthcare reform, and a core promise of the President that “if you are happy
with your health coverage you can keep it.” In addition, millions more women who receive insurance
coverage for the first time under healthcare reform would be prevented from accessing full reproductive
health care.
The RJ movement’s response to Stupak illustrates its strengths and weaknesses. The majority of the
organizations on this docket (along with two Tides staff members) were in D.C. attending the annual
SisterSong conference when Stupak was introduced. The conference paused so that and 400
conference attendees could be mobilized to the Capitol to pressure key members.
Tides staff observed strong coordination of national and local RJ groups. In a matter of hours, national
organizations like National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, National Latina Institute for
Reproductive Health, Center for Reproductive Rights, and Reproductive Health Technologies Project, had
identified key fence sitters in the House, and crafted a unified message from the RJ community.
Grassroots groups then took the baton, convened themselves by state and delivered the messages to
key representatives. After House passage, they then visited Senators to push for exclusion of this
language from the Senate version of the bill.

Particularly impressive was that the state groups did not rely on the most visible leaders or executive
directors, but rather drew on a deep bench of young women, who were steeped enough in policy work to
jump on this quickly and lead the groups in preparing for the visits. The message focused on voting down
Stupak along with several anti-immigration amendments that would have, among other things, increased
the waiting period for new immigrants to access all public benefits from five to ten years. The RJ push
was strong in large part because of this dual messaging. A good example was a group of 13 women
representing ten WOC-led organizations and thousands of constituents from New Mexico. While many of
these organizations lead with immigrant rights, the work they have done in recent years to link immigrant
rights issues to RJ enabled them to take a united stand against Stupak as well. Their visit to Senator Jeff
Bingaman (D-NM and one of the “gang of six” who crafted the initial Baucus bill) was productive and they
pushed him very hard to remain a champion on choice and immigrant rights as the bill moves through the
Senate.
The Stupak response also laid bare movement weaknesses. RJ groups are relatively new to DC “inside
the Beltway” lobbying and lack the resources and infrastructure to do policy work as nimbly as they would
like to. They are still reliant on better resourced organizations, such as Planned Parenthood Federation of
America, for much of their intelligence on how members of Congress are leaning and voting. These
mainline groups have PACs, the capacity to do rapid analysis of bills and track and score votes, large
communications departments, and teams of lobbyists on the Hill. Because RJ organizations do not have
this kind of institutionalized capacity, they have been slower in issuing a unified call to action. While PPFA
made messaging and next steps available to the field within a few days, national RJ groups are taking
longer to convey information to groups working at the state and local level. At this writing – just five days
following the passage of the House bill – RJ groups are finalizing core messaging and a list of states
where they are well positioned to pressure key Senators. More resources are needed to enable RJ
organizations to build capacity in this area.
The RJ movement is now mobilizing opposition to Stupak language in the Senate, where a bill will require
60 votes to pass. Three organizations (National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, National Asian
Pacific Women’s Forum, and Black Women’s Health Imperative) who formed Women of Color United for
Healthcare Reform earlier this year and issued a ten point platform (see Appendix) prior to Stupak’s
introduction, are playing a leadership role in linking local, state and national work on healthcare reform.
Their efforts, along with Raising Women’s Voices (a national initiative to amplify grassroots voices on
healthcare reform) have done much in recent months to engage RJ groups on healthcare reform - placing
op-eds locally, organizing 400 women for a conference call with White House staff, mobilizing 1000
people through a nation-wide call-in day, and placing online ads in critical state markets - momentum that
they will continue to build in the final months of the debate and into implementation.
Immigration Reform: If healthcare reform is passed as planned, the next big fight on the federal level
may be immigration reform. President Obama’s comments in his national address on health care reform
exposed the crosshairs in which immigrant women find themselves. The reproductive rights of immigrant
women cannot be separated from the context of an intensifying crackdown on immigrants, which is
creating fear and repression in their communities. Today, a mother or father can be rounded up in the
morning in an immigration raid at the factory where they work, and then deported or sent to a detention
center in another state, and, in the afternoon, their children wait and wait for parents who never arrive to
pick them up from school and whom they may not see again for months or years. At the Tides Momentum
conference, Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum shared photos of the late Senator Ted
Kennedy and Governor Patterson of NY in a church basement in New Bedford, NY where an immigration
raid in 2007 sent hundreds of families into a panic, searching for relatives that had been disappeared.
Governor Patterson said, “A humanitarian crisis has occurred in New Bedford.” Senator Kennedy told the
press: “They terrorized families; they terrorized children; they destroyed families. I do not want to go back

to the United States Senate and hear about family values.” Raids have only intensified since then. We are
now living an America where raids are occurring every single day, and where 30 million immigrants are
living in fear of the knock at the door.
What does this mean for RJ? It means that promotoras and other community health educators who are
often a lifeline for immigrant communities – bringing women important information about reproductive
health and connecting them to local clinics – are blocked from doing their work. For years they have gone
door to door in communities, but now people do not answer because they are terrified it might be the INS
coming to take a family member away. Women, documented or not, are too scared to venture out of the
house to clinics for reproductive health services. And for those brave enough to go to a clinic, there are
other barriers – a lack of cultural competency among providers, and language barriers that force many
women to pull their small children out of school to help translate their reproductive health concerns to
their doctor. All of this results in poor reproductive health outcomes.
So far, many of these efforts to protect the reproductive and health care rights of immigrants have been
successful. Anti-immigrant amendments have for the most part been kept out of the healthcare reform bill,
while key provisions such as funding for community health care centers, expansion of culturally and
linguistically accessible services (which supports the work of promotoras, for example) are still on table.
At the end of the day, much of fight for immigrant rights in healthcare reform will occur after the bill’s
passage and during the implementation phase.
RJ organizations have continued to build the National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights (NCIWR),
launched last year to address the impact of immigration policy on women and families, with a focus on RJ
issues such as pre-natal services and the separation of women from their infants at detention centers.
NCIWR’s 46 member organizations have had numerous meetings with Homeland Security personnel, co-
sponsored a Capitol Hill briefing on lack of RH services for women detainees, and participated in the
Presidential Transition Team Meeting on Immigration. NCIWR also signed 50 organizations to a letter
demanding that the CDC lift a mandate that immigrants submit to a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine
in order to obtain a visa or permanent residence. Many RJ groups opposed the vaccine, which is
prohibitively expensive for many immigrant women, because it is a barrier to changing immigration status
and continues an ugly legacy of forcing immigrant woman to serve as guinea pigs for new reproductive
drugs and vaccines. This November, the numerous RJ groups on this docket that participated in the
grassroots campaign on this issue scored a major victory when the CDC agreed to lift the mandate. This
is an important example of an issue that would not have been visible, and a victory that would not have
been possible, without the leadership of RJ organizations. Work on the rights of immigrant women in
healthcare and immigration reform will test the strength of the RJ movement, as well as the solidarity of
more mainline reproductive rights and other progressive organizations with immigrant women.
Wins
There were more policy wins than defeats in 2009. In addition to the victories mentioned above, here are
just a few highlights:
Youth - Implementation of landmark victories for comprehensive sex ed continued in NM, IL, DC and CA.
RJ groups continue to be the primary advocates building the leadership and engagement of youth on this
issue and pushing for implementation that is culturally competent and inclusive/non-stigmatizing of teen
moms and LGBT youth. One example is Young Women United in NM, which conducted 500 peer
surveys, held a press conference to release sex ed report cards for 11 Albuquerque Public high schools,
and moved the majority of high schools in the city to adopt curriculum that does not stigmatize young
parents.

Building on a sex ed win, Metro TeenAIDS (MTA) won two new policies this year; making condoms
available in all DC public high schools and offering STI testing in a pilot set of high schools in
collaboration with the DC Department of Health. In addition, five junior high schools are set to pilot a new
condom distribution program. MTA youth surveys were influential in designing the best models for
implementation and continue to ensure that new RJ policies are realized in DC public schools.
Choice USA was instrumental in passage of the Nominal Drug Pricing Provision of the 2009 federal
Omnibus Appropriations Act, putting affordable contraception back in the hands of millions of students
and low-income women. This provision overturned language in the federal 2007 Deficit Reduction Act,
which had prevented student health care centers, local pharmacies, and family planning providers from
purchasing and selling contraceptives at a discounted price. CUSA also aided the campaign that moved
the FDA to approve Emergency Contraception for ages 17 and older (previously 18 and over). While
several large advocacy organizations worked on these campaigns, CUSA delivered the strongest youth
presence, mobilizing 2,000 youth from 16 of its 21 chapters.
While youth-led organizations on the docket continue to take the lead on use of new communications
technologies (for example, CUSA now has a 15,000-person online community, and a 14-person blog
team), other organizations are expanding their communications capacity. National Advocates for
Pregnant Women has maintained a strong presence through op-eds, postings on sites and blogs such as
Feministing, RH Reality Check and the Huffington Post; National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
has expanded its media reach to more than eight million people annually; and Native American
Community Board has launched its own radio shows to communicate to many reservation communities.
Most grantees are making use of YouTube to document their activities.
Criminal Justice - The Rebecca Project for Human Rights helped to pass statewide anti-shackling
policies for mothers during labor and delivery in NY, TX and NM, joined the Center for Reproductive
Rights and Sistas on the Rise in a letter to newly appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to
recognize the US practice of shackling mothers during labor and delivery as a form of torture, and
mobilized 18 advocates in five states testified in US Congress to support anti-shackling legislation for
pregnant women and alternatives to incarceration for non-violent women. SPARK is working closely with
RPHR on an anti-shackling campaign in GA and other grantees, such as Legal Services for Prisoners
with Children (LSPC) and National Advocates for Pregnant Women, among others, are working on
enforcement of anti-shackling bans. LSPC (CA) helped to pass AB 2070, a state legislation that extends
the length of time that incarcerated parents have to reunify with their children from six months to two
years. It also created a CA Bill of Rights for incarcerated parents in consultation with formerly
incarcerated women who were in danger of losing their parental rights in 2009.
Ending Violence Against Women – The Native American Community Board (NACB) won a major
victory this year after a waging a ten-year campaign to address the alarmingly high rates of sexual assault
suffered by Native women and girls. Previously, NACB community based research revealed the dire
circumstances faced by Native women in the U.S. A Native woman who seeks care from Indian Health
Services (IHS) after a rape typically finds no Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) on duty; no
access to Emergency Contraception to prevent pregnancy; no rape kits to collect evidence, no
counseling, and no requirement that the practitioner who examines her respond to a subpoena to testify
in court. While legally entitled to abortion care, she is unlikely to be granted access; a 2006 NACB study
of services provided between 1973 and 2001 revealed that during that nearly 30-year period, IHS
performed only 25 abortions nationwide; 85 percent of the 350+ IHS sites did not comply with the
agency’s own official abortion directive; and IHS staff were largely unaware of Native women’s rights
regarding abortions. As a result, Native women are left without the most basic reproductive health care
and unable to secure a conviction against assailants, the vast majority of whom are white men who come

onto reservations from surrounding towns. This year, they helped to secure $300 million in funding
through the 2009 federal Omnibus Appropriations Act to support tribal law enforcement and IHS to reduce
the rate of sexual assault in Native communities and to improve services for women who are assaulted.
They are working closely with the new Administration and IHS to enforce and expand this win in the
coming year.
Abortion and Contraception Rights – In addition to the abortion rights work related to health care
reform described above, Faith Aloud (MO) contributed to the defeat of the two restrictive bills in the MO
legislature, the Coerced Abortions Act and the Pharmacy Refusal Act. This marks the second year in a
row that no new restrictions were placed upon access to abortion and contraception in MO.
West Virginia FREE helped defeat a statewide Medicaid bill which would have prevented public
employees from obtaining abortion care under their insurance plans, even for medical reasons.
The Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health supported the ACLU as it successfully persuaded a circuit court
judge to enter a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the 1995 Parental Notification of
Abortion Act due to questions about whether it violated the Illinois Constitution. If enforced, it would
require all young women in Illinois to notify their parent or guardian 48 hours before obtaining an abortion.
In Colorado, COLOR supported passage of the Birth Control Protection Act, which defines birth control as
separate from abortion. This new law counters recent attempts by pro-life forces to lump basic
contraceptive methods together with abortion.
Environmental Health and Justice – In CA, while legislation mandating that safety information for nail
salons be translated into multiple languages was ultimately vetoed by the Governor, CalOSHA and the
Board of Barbering and Cosmetology (BBC) have already begun making safety information available in
multiple languages. The BBC has shifted its primary strategy from punitive to “courtesy inspections” which
focuses on providing workers with the information they need to improve their health and safety. These
actions are a testament to strong grassroots organizing among Vietnamese nail salon workers that
pressured both agencies for change.
Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) executive director Pam Miller was part of a 20-member
Coming Clean delegation that briefed the Obama transition team on environmental health issues,
including the impact that POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) have on women’s reproductive health.
ACAT also worked with the International Indian Treaty Council to draft and prompt passage of a National
Congress of American Indians resolution calling on the U.S. government to ratify and implement the
Stockholm Convention, which would increase regulation of these chemicals
Several groups in the docket are working at the federal level to reduce reproductive toxins by passing the
Toxic Substances Control Act, pushing for enactment of the Kids Safe Chemicals Act, and for stronger
regulation of two harmful pesticides, lindane and endosulfan.
Recommendations
While many of the 25 organizations on this docket are working on traditional reproductive rights issues
such as reproductive health care access (19 organizations), abortion rights (17), and comprehensive
sexuality education (10), the majority are also working on and leading with broader RJ issues such as
birthing and parenting rights (12), LGBT rights (11), criminal justice reform (10), ending violence against
women (8), immigrant rights (8), environmental health (7), labor/worker rights (7), HIV/AIDS prevention
(2), and disability rights (1).

Constituencies represented include Native American, Latina, White, African American, Asian, Pacific
Islander, and multi-racial women, young women, LGBT people, incarcerated women, migrant workers,
women with drug addictions, refugee women, immigrant women, sex workers, nail salon workers, low-
income women, rural women, high school and college students, and faith communities. Women of color
are well represented in the leadership and constituency of all but two of the recommended organizations.
Seven are youth-focused. Five are rural and eight are intermediary support organizations that boost the
capacity of other organizations on the docket and within the RJ movement.
Conclusion
The RJ movement is more important than ever as the human rights of American women, especially
women of color, low income, and immigrant women are under increasing attack. In a political environment
where reproductive rights continue to be seen as privileges that can be revoked at any time, the work that
the RJ movement is doing to root reproductive rights in basic human rights is essential to maintaining
past gains. Equally important is the leading role that RJ organizations are playing in building a broad,
multi-racial, multi-class, and multi-generational grassroots base of support - a base that is revitalizing the
U.S. movement for reproductive freedom and proving effective at winning new ground.

LINKS TO
TRADITIONAL
REPRODUCTIVE
Cross Movement Work RIGHTS ISSUES LINKS TO OTHER SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENTS
Labor/Worker Rights
Reproductive Health
Comprehensive Sex
Birthing/Parenting
Immigrant Rights
Disability Rights
Ending Violence
Criminal Justice
Against Women
Abortion Rights
HIV Prevention
Environmental
Health/Justice
LGBT Rights
Care Access
Education
Rights
ORGANIZATION
1 Alaska Community Action on Toxics X
2 Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice X X X X X X X
3 CA Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative X X
4 CA Latinas for Reproductive Justice X X X X X X X
5 Choice USA X X X X
6 COLOR X X X X X
7 FAITH ALOUD X X X X
8 Generations Ahead X X X X
9 Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health X X X X
10 Legal Services for Prisoners with Children X X X X X
11 Migrant Health Promotion X X X
12 National Advocates for Pregnant Women X X X X
13 National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum X X X X X X
14 National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health X X X X X X
15 Native American Community Board X X X X
16 Rebecca Project for Human Rights X X X X
17 SisterSong X X X X
18 SPARK X X X X X X X
19 Western States Center X X X X X
20 West Virginia Focus (WV Free) X X X X
21 Young Women United X X X X X X X

Health Reform Imperatives for Women and Communities of Color
2009 RJF DOCKET - Geographic Distribution

"And if we want to achieve true equality for women, if that is our goal; if we want to ensure that women
have opportunities that they deserve, if that is our goal; if we want women to be able to care for their
families and pursue things that they could never imagine, then we have to reform the system. We have to
reform the system. The status quo is unacceptable. It is holding women and families back, and we know
it."
– First Lady Michelle Obama, September 18, 2009

FAITH ALOUD
Congress must act now to reform our nation’s health care system, which is drastically underserving
St. Louis, MO National Latina National Advocates for
Institute for
women and communities of color. By 2042, people of color are expected to comprise the majority of
Generations Ahead Reproductive Health
Pregnant Women
New York, NY
Oakland, CA New York, NY
the U.S. population. Today, people of color make up more than 30% of the U.S. workforce, even though
Native American
Community Board Illinois Caucus for
they are only about 26% of the U.S. population. Women of color, in particular, make up a critical force
Lake Andes, SD Adolescent Health
Western States Center Chicago, IL
in our economy. Companies owned by women of color were the fast‐growing group among all
Portland, OR
companies from 2002 to 2008. The future of our nation hinges on the health and well‐being of women
of color.

Yet today’s broken health care system denies millions of women of color the ability to live healthy lives
Asian Communities for
Reproductive Justice
and renders them unable to participate fully in social, civic, and political affairs in their communities
Oakland, CA
and – more importantly – in the lives of their families. More than one‐third of the 45 million
Legal Services for
Americans who lack health insurance are women of color. They live in underserved and under‐
CA Healthy Nail Prisoners with Children
Choice USA
resourced communities, lack appropriate access to primary health care, and endure more chronic
Salons Collaborative San Francisco, CA
Washington, D.C.
Oakland, CA
illnesses and disease that go undiagnosed or undertreated, resulting in shortened lives and avoidable
deaths.
Rebecca Project
Alaska Community for Human Rights
Nearly four out of every 10 Latinas (38%) and nearly one in four Black (23%) and Asian and Pacific
Action on Toxics Washington, D.C.
Islander women (24%) lack health insurance coverage. Many women of color who have coverage are
Anchorage, AL
under‐insured, or face cultural and/or linguistic barriers to accessing quality care. National Asian

Pacific American
Women's Forum
Access to quality, affordable health care for all people who live in the United States is absolutely
CA Latinas for SisterSong Takoma Park, MD
Reproductive Justice
essential. We cannot allow politics or partisanship to block the effort to reform health care. As
Los Angeles, CA
Women of Color
Reproductive Health
women of color, we support passage of a health care reform bill that ensures access to high‐quality, Atlanta, GA West Virginia Focus:
Reproductive Education
affordable, and easily accessible comprehensive health care for all that: and Equality (WV Free)
SPARK
(formerly Georgians
Charleston, WV
Migrant Health
1. Ensures that everyone in the U.S. receives equal access to health coverage. Increasing
COLOR
Denver, CO
Young Women United Promotion for Choice)
Atlanta, GA
Albuquerque, NM Weslaco, TX
access to affordable health care is essential to ensuring that all women receive the preventative
and medical care they need to lead healthy and productive lives. A fair and equal reform bill
would provide everyone – including immigrants – with the opportunity to pay into and benefit
from the health care system.
National Organization

2. Ensures that health coverage is available over the course of one’s lifespan. Women
frequently encounter disruptions in care because of divorce, the death of a partner, or job
transitions. Such life changes should not impact a person’s ability to access the health care
system.
Tides Reproductive Justice Fund - Fall 2009 Docket (Public) 62 9
Fall 2009 Docket
Geographic Distribution
Organization Location National Regional State Local

Alaska Community Action on Toxics AK X X X
Asian Communities for Reproductive CA X X X X
Justice
California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative CA X
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice CA X X
Generations Ahead CA X X
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children CA X
Colorado Organization for Latina CO X X
Opportunity and Reproductive Rights
Choice USA DC X X X
National Asian Pacific American Women’s DC X X
Forum
Rebecca Project for Human Rights DC X X X
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive GA X X
Health Collective
SPARK Reproductive Justice Now GA X
Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health IL X X
FAITH ALOUD MO X X
Young Women United NM X X
National Advocates for Pregnant Women NY X X X
National Latina Institute for Reproductive NY X X
Health
Western States Center OR X X X
Native American Community Board SD X X X
Migrant Health Promotion/La Voz Latina TX X X
West Virginia Focus: Reproductive WV X X
Education and Equality
AK CA CO DC GA ID IL MO MT NM NY OR SD TX WV
Recommended
1 5 1 2 2 0 1 1 0 1 2 1 1 1 1
Number of for Funding
Organizations Not
2 1 1
Recommended

2009 RJ Movement Connections – Who is Working Together?
WV
ACAT ACRJ CHNSC CLRJ CUSA COLOR FA GA ICAH LSPC MHP NAPW NAPAWF NLIRH NACB RPHR SS SPARK WSC YWU
FREE
ACAT
ACRJ
CHNSC
CLRJ
CUSA
COLOR
FA
GA
ICAH
LSPC
MHP
NAPW
NAPAWF
NLIRH
NACB
RPHR
SS
SPARK
WSC
WV FREE
YWU
ACAT - Alaska Community Action on Toxics NAPW - National Advocates for Pregnant Women
CUSA - Choice USA RPHR - Rebecca Project for Human Rights
COLOR - Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunities and Reproductive Rights SS - SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health
FA - Faith Aloud SPARK - SPARK
GA - Generations Ahead WSC - Western States Center Organizations Responses Key
ICAH - Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health WV Free - West Virginia Focus we do not work with this organization
LSPC - Legal Services for Prisoners with Children YWU - Young Women United informal ally: we occasionally trade notes on
MHP - Migrant Health Promotion strategy and best practices.
capacity building ally: they provide us &/or we
provide them with formal technical assistance,
training and/or capacity building support
coalition/campaign ally: we are actively
partnering on an organizing/advocacy campaign.

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTIC FUND
Fall 2009 Scoring Sheet
TIDES RJF FUNDING PRIORITIES

Engages Strong Cultivates
Expands Historically Alliances w/in Cross- Capacity to Communi
Grassroots Leadership definition Underrep. RJ/RR/RH Movement Achieve cation/ Integration of TOTAL SCORE
ORGANIZATION Organizing Advocacy Development of RJ Women movement Collaboration Stated Goals Media Strategies OUT OF 30
1 Alaska Community Action on Toxics 2 3 2 3 3 2 3 2 3 2 25
2 Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 30
3 California Latinas for Reproductive Justice 2 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 3 27
4 California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 2 1 3 25
5 Choice USA 2 2 3 3 2 3 2 2 2 2 23
6 COLOR 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 27
7 Faith Aloud 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 20
8 Generations Ahead 1 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 25
9 Illinois Causus for Adolescent Health 3 3 3 1 3 2 2 3 2 3 25
10 Legal Services for Prisoners with Children 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 2 2 3 27
11 Migrant Health Promotion 3 2 3 2 3 3 1 2 3 2 24
12 National Advocates for Pregnant Women 2 3 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 27
13 National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum 2 3 2 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 24
14 National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health 2 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 25
15 Native American Community Board 2 3 2 3 3 2 3 2 3 3 26
16 Rebecca Project for Human Rights 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 3 2 3 28
17 SisterSong
Si t S 1 2 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 24
18 SPARK 2 3 2 3 3 3 3 1 1 3 24
19 Western States Center 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 3 29
20 West Virginia FREE 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 2 2 3 24
21 Young Women United 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 28
SCORING KEY
0 = Does not incorporate into the work / None
1 = Does incorporate it into the work/Not a core strategy/Not effective/Low
2 = Competent/Core Strategy/Effective/Medium
3 = Leader and innovator in the field/Core Strategy/Extremely Effective/High

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE FUND
Fall 2009 Action Sheet
Organization Budget '09 Budget '10 Granted 2009
Alaska Community Action on Toxics $958,000 $908,000 $45,000
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice $867,173 $1,065,452 $62,500
CA Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative $110,000 $115,000 $20,000
CA Latinas for Reproductive Justice $492,218 $687,609 $40,000
Choice USA $929,710 $938,861 $30,000
COLOR $276,150 $400,000 $30,000
Faith Aloud $287,777 $165,500 $20,000
Generations Ahead $671,000 $464,000 $40,000
Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health $1,054,235 $807,975 $25,000
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children $1,055,570 $1,118,281 $30,000
Migrant Health Promotion $1,716,657 $2,050,401 $30,000
National Advocates for Pregnant Women $889,828 $924,000 $40,000
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum $817,500 $529,146 $30,000
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health $818,060 $1,360,000 $35,000
Native American Community Board $692,901 $676,529 $40,000
Rebecca Project for Human Rights $615,000 $906,000 $62,500
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health $785,505 $665,241 $30,000
SPARK (formerly Georgians for Choice) $190,000 $226,340 $25,000
Western States Center $1,510,000 $1,524,000 $35,000
West Virginia Focus: Reproductive Education and Equality

$250,000 $225,740 $40,000
(WV Free)
Young Women United $295,000 $209,510 $35,000
Total: $745,000
*All Applicants are seeking a renewal grant

Fall 2009 Docket
Contact List
Alaska Community Action on Toxics

Pamela K. Miller
Executive Director
907.222.7714
pkmiller@akaction.net
www.akaction.org
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice

Diana Ip
Communications & Development Director
510.663.8300
Diana@reproductivejustice.org
www.reproductivejustice.org
California Healthy Nail Salons Collaborative

Julia Liou
Collaborative Manager
510.986.6830 x267
jliou@ahschc.org
www.cahealthynailsalons.org

California Latinas for Reproductive Justice
Rocio L. Córdoba
Executive Director
213.925.6020
Rocio@clrj.org
www.clrj.org
Choice USA
Robin Wood
Development Coordinator
202.965.7700
rwood@choiceusa.org
www.choiceusa.org
COLOR
Jacinta Montoya Price
Executive Director
303.393.0382
jacy@colorlatina.org
www.colorlatina.org

Faith Aloud
Rev. Rebecca Turner
Executive Director
314.531.5010
execdirector@FaithAloud.org
www.FaithAloud.org
Generations Ahead
Victoria Quevedo
Administrative Assistant
510.832.0852 x307
vquevedo@generations-ahead.org
www.generations-ahead.org
Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health

Soo Ji Min
Executive Director
312.427.4460 x225
sooji@icah.org
www.icah.org
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children

Karen Shain
Co-Director
415.255.7036 x313
Karen@prisonerswithchildren.org
www.prisonerswithchildren.org

Migrant Health Promotion
Phillis Engelbert
Associate Director
734.944.0244 x12
pengelbert@migranthealth.org
www.migranthealth.org
National Advocates for Pregnant Women

Cassandra Burrows
Research and Program Associate
212.255.9252
cmb@advocatesforpregnantwomen.org
www.nationaladvocatesforpregnantwomen.org
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum

Miriam W. Yeung
Executive Director
202.470.3170
myeung@napawf.org
www.napawf.org
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

Samantha Harper
Senior Associate for Development
212.422.2553
Samantha@latinainstitute.org
www.latinainstitute.org

Native American Community Board
Charon Asetoyer
Executive Director
605.487.7072
charon@charles-mix.com
www.nativeshop.org
Rebecca Project for Human Rights

Malika Saada Saar
Executive Director
202.265.3907
malika@rebeccaproject.org
www.rebeccaproject.org
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health

Kai Gurley
Development Coordinator
404.756.2680
kai@sistersong.net
www.sistersong.net

SPARK Reproductive Justice Now
Paris Hatcher
Co-Executive Director
404.532.0022
paris@sparkrj.org
www.sparkrj.org
Western States Center

Kalpana Karishnamurthy
Field Director
503.228.8866
kalpanak@wscpdx.org
www.westernstatescenter.org
West Virginia Focus: Reproductive Education

and Equality
Margaret Chapman
Executive Director
304.342.9188
margaret@wvfree.org
www.wvfree.org
Young Women United

Adriann Barboa
Director
505.831.8930
abarboa@youngwomenunited.org
www.youngwomenunited.org

Organization: Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT)
City, State: Anchorage, AK
Organizational/Project Budget: $908,000/$203,168
Other Funding Sources: Bullitt, John Merck, Norman, Ford, Rockefeller Family
Fund, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Organizational Profile:
Founded in 1997, ACAT is a statewide environmental health (EH) and environmental justice
(EJ) organization working primarily with Native communities to limit exposure to toxics, protect
ecosystems, and hold corporations and the military accountable. Through five interrelated
programs, ACAT organizes scientists, health care providers, youth, native communities,
reproductive health (RH) and environmental organizations to change local, national and
international policies that impact Alaska; to secure the right to clean air, clean water, and toxic-
free food; and to assure healing and wellness for communities impacted by environmental
toxins. Its core strategies include grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, alliance-building, and
litigation supported by scientific research. Alaska is home to 2,000 military and industrial
hazardous waste sites, many close to Native Alaskan communities. High pollution levels are
compounded by geography, cold climate and a fat-based food web, which favor the
accumulation of toxins in fish and wildlife and affect the health and fertility of the Native
Alaskans who rely on wild foods for subsistence.
In 2005, at the urging of its Native Alaskan leadership, ACAT launched the Alaska
Environmental Reproductive Justice Project (AERJP) to change local, national, and international
policies regarding environmental contaminants linked to the major RJ concerns of Native villages:
premature and still births, birth defects, poor infant health, involuntary infertility, spontaneous
abortions, endometriosis, and reproductive cancers. AERJP has built a growing network of
individuals and ally organizations now engaged in campaigns to change public policy.
Highlights:
• ACAT director Pam Miller was part of a 20-member Coming Clean delegation that
briefed the Obama transition team on EH issues, particularly POPs (Persistent Organic
Pollutants).
• Worked with the International Indian Treaty Council to draft and prompt passage of a
National Congress of American Indians resolution calling on the U.S. government to
ratify and implement the Stockholm Convention on POPs.
• Conducted community based research on the impacts of endocrine disrupting chemicals
on the reproductive health of native Alaskans that is informing the implementation of the
UN Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) convention and possible reform of the federal
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA);
• Created bi-partisan support in the Alaska legislature for three proposed bills to phase out
the use of BFRs (Brominated Flame Retardants) in children’s products, reduce the use
of toxic chemicals in public schools, and eliminate the use of other toxics in children’s
products.
• Native community leaders participated in key state networks (AK Alliance for RJ, AK
Public Health Assoc.) and in national and global networks such as POPs Elimination
Network, SAFER, Pesticide Action Network, International Indian Treaty Council and
Coming Clean.

2009 Progress Report:
ACAT has continued to advance policy work and community organizing while building its
internal capacity to do this work long term.
1) Sponsor Mother’s Day public event with press conference in Alaska hub cities highlighting
chemical exposure: This year, Mothers’ Day coincided with the international meeting of the
Stockholm Convention, so instead of holding press conferences locally, ACAT organized a
seven-member Arctic Indigenous delegation to attend this meeting in Geneva. The
delegation worked to influence important international decisions of the 164 nations
concerning the listing new POPs such as toxic flame retardants, perfluorinated chemicals,
the pesticide lindane and others)—chemicals that are associated with adverse health effects
such as endocrine disruption, learning and developmental disorders, and cancers. They
held a demonstration at the entrance of the United Nations meeting, and a cultural and
educational event that informed national delegates about the impacts of long-range
transport of persistent chemicals in the Arctic. ACAT’s role in the proceedings generated
media coverage in AK newspapers and national environmental publications.
2) Collaborate with the Alliance for Reproductive Justice to conduct a workshop for state
legislators through the Health Caucus of the Alaska State Legislature. ACAT organized
meetings with 20 state legislators and distributed materials to all 60 state lawmakers’ offices.
As a result, ACAT was able to help craft three pieces of legislation (see highlights above).
While these bills were unsuccessful in the 2009 legislature, ACAT and its allies plan to
reintroduce them in 2010, with the hope of seeing the flame retardant ban enacted next year
and the other two bills in 2011. That ACAT has been able to garner this much support for
such strong public policy is a huge step forward in this conservative state.
3) Establish and sponsor a project steering committee composed of leaders from the ERJ
Network including health-affected tribes and health-care groups that will meet monthly.
ACAT did not establish a steering committee that met monthly due to difficulties finding a
workable meeting time. Instead, it met and consulted with a core group of leaders
representing organizations including the Alliance for Reproductive Justice, Planned
Parenthood, Alaska Public Health Association, Community Health Aides Program, and
Alaska Nurses Association. It did sponsor monthly teleconference calls/seminars as part of
its Alaska Collaborative on Health and the Environment.
4) Sponsor ERJ policy working groups focused on issues that emerge from a statewide
environmental health and justice forum held December 2008. ACAT cancelled this
forum due to lack of funding and instead created opportunities to organize workshops,
identify issues and develop strategy at 10 other conferences and meetings.
In addition, in September, 2009, ACAT organized a 16-person delegation of Native leaders from
St. Lawrence Island, collaborating scientists, and ACAT staff for a series of meetings and
presentations in Washington D.C. The delegation included youth and elders, and leadership
from the two Native villages on St. Lawrence Island. The delegation presented information
about their history, culture, and the importance of their traditional diet of foods from the lands
and waters for physical and spiritual sustenance, and issued recommendations to high level
policy makers at the Department of Defense, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental
Protection Agency, State Department, and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Key asks included the need for proper characterization of formerly used defense sites, more
thorough and aggressive clean up, and the inclusion of Northeast Cape (NEC) on the National
Priorities List.

2010 Plan:
ACAT will build a strong base of support for public policy advances at the local, state, federal
and international levels:
• Support state legislation (see above) to advance EH/RH health.
• Work with national collaborations to support reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act;
enact the Kids Safe Chemicals Act, and push for stronger regulation of two pesticides
(lindane and endosulfan) that are particularly harmful to the RH of Native Alaskans.
• Continue its leadership in the global POPs network, with the specific goal of getting the
POPs Review Committee, an official body of the Stockholm Convention, to recommend
a ban on endosulfan.
• Work with native communities and environmental organizations to halt the Alaska
Railroad’s pesticide spraying and to provide legal strategies to Native villages as they
attempt to force the Federal Department of Defense to clean up toxic waste sites.
ACAT’s commitment to building a strong base for its RJ work has really paid off. The
organization has integrated RJ into virtually all of its programs and has strong buy-in from its
board and constituents. Given its role with so many important national and global collaborations,
ACAT is now a strong, respected voice for the RJ/EH connection and is consistently
demonstrating how to make it real. Like most organizations, ACAT has had a tight year
financially, but has been able to continue to grow slowly. It has raised its full $824,000 budget
for 2009, and has secured about one-third of its 2010 funding. ACAT plans to increase its ERJ
project budget from $164,000 in 2009 to $203,000 in 2010, despite having raised only about
$120,000 of the 2009 budget. Thanks to support from the Environmental Support Center and
Tides’ Catalyst Fund, ACAT is developing a long term plan to raise more money from individuals
and local sources. Today, the organization receives about 30-40 percent of its funds from
federal grants and contracts and the remainder from foundations. ACAT has raised only about
$10,000 from individuals in 2008 and hopes to increase this to $30,000 in 2010.
ACAT continues to be a pioneering and effective leader at the intersection of RJ and
environmental health and justice. It is also one of the few organizations on this docket that is
supporting the engagement and leadership of Native communities.

Organization: Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice (ACRJ)
City, State: Oakland, CA
Organizational Budget: $1,065,452
Other Funding Sources: Ford, Tides/Hewlett, General Service, Moriah, Ms.,
Women’s Foundation of CA, Gerbode, Mitchell Kapor,
Hidden Leaf, Jewish Funds for Justice
Founded in 1989, Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice (ACRJ) is a local and national
leader in the RJ movement. Locally, two ACRJ programs develop the leadership of low-income,
young Asian women from immigrant families in Alameda County. The SAFIRE (Sisters in Action
for Issues of Reproductive Empowerment) program offers Asian women ages 14-21 intensive
leadership development and community organizing training opportunities. The POLISH
(Participatory research, Organizing, and Leadership Initiative for Safety and Health) program,
addresses the reproductive health impacts of exposure to personal care products– particularly
in the rapidly growing, and almost entirely Vietnamese, nail salon industry.
Nationally, ACRJ’s RJ movement building work develops the infrastructure and capacity of RJ
and other social justice organizations to forge strategic alliances and take action. It
encompasses state level work, such as campaigns to defeat California’s various parental
notification ballot initiatives, as well as EMERJ (Expanding the Movement for Empowerment and
Reproductive Justice), a new five-year national initiative launched in 2006 with the support of
California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, Western States Center, and other leading RJ
organizations. EMERJ strengthens RJ organizations, but also helps non-RJ identified
organizations see their connection to the larger RJ movement. Rolling out in four phases
between 2007-2011, EMERJ’s goals are to build:
• Power through local and state level organizing for concrete institutional, policy and
electoral change;
• Leadership by fostering long-term strategic alliances among a core set of RJ
organizations;
• Capacity by providing organizing tools, models, and resources to new and established
RJ efforts; and
• Movement by developing a plan for collective action and long-term strategy.
ACRJ's staff and board are 80 percent women of color, 60 percent multilingual, 30 percent
immigrant or refugee, 50 percent LGBT, and 35 percent are between the ages of 25-35.
Highlights:
Over the past ten years, ACRJ has:
• Shut down an East Oakland toxic medical waste incinerator that was causing major
environmental health problems for the community;
• Authored and published the seminal paper A New Vision, now the most widely used
definition of reproductive justice in the U.S.;
• Won regulatory changes at the state level to protect the reproductive health of nail salon
workers; and

• Supported over 500 national opinion leaders, policymakers, coalition and networks, think
tanks, foundations, universities, and other entities with tools, training, and technical
assistance to develop their understanding of reproductive justice as a powerful
framework for community and systemic change.

ACRJ exceeded its ambitious set of objectives for 2009:
1) Build the capacity of the EMERJ Strategy Team: The EMERJ Strategy Team worked with 15
RJ leaders and a professional evaluator to develop a set of movement building indicators
that help RJ groups track impact and that have informed the evaluation programs of several
foundations. The team also supported 57 organizations in specific RJ policy change efforts;
developed model curriculum on how to move an RJ policy agenda that will be disseminated
as part of an EMERJ RJ Toolkit later this year; and published the first three editions of the
Momentum Series, a series of publications that provides the field with tools, models, and
resources, as well as documentation of key victories and dialogues.
2) Establish three strategic cohorts to lead campaigns for policy change. Two cohorts were
established, each comprising six organizations. The first, SexEd!, launched in February
2009, supports members to create individual and collective work plans for advancing
comprehensive sexuality education, to develop skills to document the impact of their work,
and to link local grassroots efforts to national strategies. The second, Ground Work,
launched in July 2009, supports prominent community leaders outside of the RJ movement
in building the skills and capacity to build a broader base of support for RJ in the Pacific
Northwest.
3) Develop and implement at least eight RJ trainings across the country to bring key sectors
into the RJ movement. ACRJ conducted 18 trainings, reaching 760 people in 45 cities, in the
following sectors: youth organizing, reproductive rights, juvenile justice, green justice/climate
change, immigrant rights, environmental justice, and LGBT rights.
4) Audit national RJ policy to identify current RJ policy battles, mark which policies have
traction, and collect case studies of successful policy change strategies. ACRJ completed
the policy audit, publishing two reports as planned, along with three additional reports.
5) Create a 30 member SAFIRE alumni network. The SAFIRE alumni network now includes 35
young women. Alumni led a conversation on RJ and climate change at PowerShift 2009,
which convened over 12,000 youth in D.C.; and designed You Can't Find Beauty in a Bottle,
a website to launch this fall to educate their peers about toxins in personal care products.
6) Scale back the POLISH program. A scale up occurred instead, through collaboration with
new partners such as California Healthy Nail Collaborative. Polish increased its base from
30 to 200 members and organized the first multilingual (Vietnamese, Spanish, English) Bay
Area-wide Nail Salon Community Forum where over 175 nail salon workers and owners
testified before executive officers of CalOSHA and the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology
(BBC). As a result, California safety information and regulations are now available in multiple
languages; the BBC shifted its primary strategy from punitive to “courtesy inspections” which
focus on providing workers with the information they need to improve their health and safety.

2010 Plan:
With Tides support in the coming year, ACRJ plans to:
• Complete the SexEd! strategic cohort by bringing six groups into alignment around
strategies and expand the groundwork cohort to nine organizations;
• Design and conduct 10 RJ skill-building trainings for 70 organizations;
• Work with other leading RJ groups to disseminate the Movement Building Indicators
using an online tool for strategic planning and evaluation;
• Recruit, train and develop 60 – 80 young Asian women from low-income immigrant and
refugee families as new SAFIRE leaders for reproductive justice;
• Train 100-200 Vietnamese nail salon workers through POLISH to engage at least five
government agencies and/or local and state coalitions on policy work for health and
safety.
• Support a cohort of organizations in Oakland to launch a climate justice and RJ
campaign linked to the local organizing needs of nail salon workers and leverage County
programs targeting new potential green industries to increase the ranks of women of
color in the development of green jobs.
ACRJ’s 2010 plan is ambitious but consistent with past accomplishments. As Tides’ universe of
RJ grantees has broadened (now nearly 80 RJ organizations across the nation), ACRJ’s value
as a thought leader and a trusted partner in the often delicate work of alliance and coalition
building has become increasingly visible. This reflects ACRJ’s deep bench of leadership on
staff. The addition of nationally regarded RJ trainer Moira Bowman, formally of Western States
Center, as Director of the EMERJ program, and the increased visibility of three staff who have
stepped up to serve as the public face of ACRJ, demonstrate a strong leadership pipeline.
ACRJ is in good financial health. It has raised 90 percent of its 2009 budget and 62 percent of
its 2010 budget, which is nine percent higher than this year’s. However, ACRJ will be
challenged to meet its 2010 budget and maintain momentum in the current economy. One
strategy it is exploring is increased cultivation of foundations in the environmental sector. Of its
total 2010 budget, 93 percent is derived from foundation grants, three percent from grassroots
fundraising, and the remainder from earned and interest income.
ACRJ continues to serve as a major accelerator of RJ organizing activity in the US. An
investment in ACRJ has a ripple effect that positively impacts dozens of other organizations and
strengthens the US RJ movement overall.

Organization: California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative: The Collaborative
(A fiscally sponsored project of Asian Health Services)
Organizational Budget: $115,000
Other Funding Sources: CA Wellness, Rose Foundation, Center for Environmental Health,
Women’s Foundation
The Collaborative was formed in 2005 out of growing concern for the health and safety of
California nail salon and cosmetology workers, owners and students. Now composed of more
than 25 public health, environmental and reproductive justice advocates, nail salon workers and
owners, community-based groups, educational institutions and allies in public agencies, the
Collaborative addresses the environmental health issues facing the nail salon community
through integrated policy advocacy, research, outreach, and education strategies. The
Collaborative meets once or twice annually and is organized into five committees that meet by
conference call throughout the year: Policy (Government/Regulatory Agency Relations;
Outreach and Education); Ethnic Media; Research; Building Bridges (connecting groups across
racial/ethnic, reproductive/environmental/ public health lines; and) Industry (identifying
opportunities to engage with manufacturers). The Collaborative is governed by a seven –
member steering committee that includes a community advocate from San Francisco and from
Oakland, and representatives from the Asian EH+EJ Consulting Group, Asian Law Caucus,
Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, Asian Health Services, and the Northern California
Cancer Center; six of these members are women of color.
Highlights:
Some of the Collaborative’s critical victories over the past four years include:
• Supported the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2005, a state law that requires manufacturers to
report to the Department of Health Services if their products contain carcinogenic or
endocrine disrupting chemicals;
• Advocated in policy meetings with the California Occupational Safety Health and
Administration (CalOSHA) that resulted in a mandate to lower the permissible exposure
limit for toluene, a reproductive toxicant found in nail products;
• Helped draft state legislation that would have required culturally and linguistically
appropriate health and safety materials for nail salon workers. The bill passed both
houses of the legislature, but was vetoed by the Governor this year; and
• Received 2007 US Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Award.

The Collaborative surpassed all of its 2008 goals:
1) Work with CalOSHA, the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology (BBC) and the Health
Evaluation Safety and Information Services (HESIS) to create the first comprehensive Nail
Salon Health and Safety Workplace Guidance booklet and ensure that it integrates
reproductive health information: The Collaborative continues to deepen its relationship with
CalOSHA to ensure the booklet is tailored specifically for the nail salon industry, and will be
translated and distributed to nail and beauty salon community members. Given HESIS’
expertise in establishing standard settings for cancer and reproductive hazards, the

Collaborative is exploring ways in which the booklet can incorporate a reproductive justice
framework and information on potential reproductive health impacts.
2) Host a research convening to design an investigative agenda to inform future policy and
health outreach efforts: The Collaborative held a Nail Salon and Cosmetology Community
Research Convening with over 120 attendees including academic researchers, scientists,
reproductive/environmental and public health organizations, community based advocates,
government and state agencies who have some jurisdiction over nail salons, industry
members, and nail salon workers and owners from all over the nation (OR, D.C., NY, NC,
WA, MD). The entire group has developed next steps, goals, and research strategies and
agenda now being compiled into a report with National Nail Salon Alliance partners. To
move this agenda forward, the Collaborative is creating a research advisory committee
charged with participating in and watch-dogging this process.
3) Engage Collaborative members in policy advocacy through petitions, letters, lobby day visits
and policy conferences; release a Nail Salon Policy Recommendation Report; and work with
the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to gather information to regulate manufacturers:
Collaborative members continue to advocate for more protective CalOSHA standards for
women who are pregnant or of reproductive age. One member provided testimony at
National Institute for Health Reproductive Health hearings, and almost 80 percent of
Collaborative members sent letters of support for a state nail salon worker health and safety
bill. The Collaborative produced a Nail Salon Policy Recommendation report for state
legislators and local policy makers which has also served as a roadmap for a national policy
agenda and building alliances with other key organizations. CARB agreed to conduct site
visits to nail salons and consider regulating manufacturers that produce volatile organic
compounds. The Collaborative will focus on advocacy among regulatory agencies to
establish appropriate green business standards, develop an incentive system to encourage
salons to become “greener,” and initiate policies more protective for worker health and
safety.
Community forums in Southern California (200 participants) and in Marin County (100
participants) provided nail salon community members with an opportunity to voice their
concerns and talk directly with key state regulatory agencies such as the BBC and CalOSHA.
The Collaborative has held two nail salon worker and owner group meetings to provide input
and guidance for the research convening, policy recommendation report, and activities related
to regulatory state agencies. The Collaborative is also establishing worker/owner advisory
groups in Marin and Orange Counties. As a result of increased engagement within the nail salon
community, greater number of nail salon owners have committed to a “greening” of their
establishments.
2010 Plan:
In 2010, the Collaborative plans to:
• Expand partnerships that will support cross-movement building between reproductive
justice, environmental justice, and public health allies;
• Create a mechanism for dialogue on research on the potential link between chemical
compound exposure and reproductive health and cancer risks;
• Build a greater awareness among policymakers and state agencies about nail salon
worker health and safety issues and their intersection between reproductive and
environmental health/justice.
As a member of the Women’s Foundation of California’s Environmental and Reproductive
Justice Initiative, the Collaborative is currently fostering working relationships between its RJ

and EJ members, and is helping to identify potential joint projects or activities, particularly in
Southern California. The Collaborative has built relationships with Law Students for
Reproductive Justice, nail salon collaboratives in Seattle and Oregon, and is currently exploring
deeper relationships with Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy and Women’s Health
and the Environment Initiative (WHEI). It is also strengthening its ties to academic institutions
and African American hair salons by co-sponsoring a University of California San Francisco
Reproductive Health workshop as well as an African American hair salon event. One additional
labor group, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, joined the nail salon campaign efforts.
The Collaborative has garnered media attention through radio, television, internet blogging and
new articles. While the Collaborative’s strength has been its ability to build key alliances with a
diverse set of groups, some great challenges have been lack of data on the nail salon and
cosmetology population, the complex nature of the nail salon workforce in which most workers
are related to the owners, and mobilizing often times limited-English proficient workers with
scarce resources related to translation and interpretation.
The Collaborative is supported by one half-time staff coordinator, in kind time from members,
and consultants. It has raised over 60 percent of its $115,000 budget, with an additional
$45,000 pending for FY09, and has secured $63,000 towards its $115,000 budget projected for
FY 10-11 – the Collaborative is using the same budgets to account for the economic downturn.
Currently in year two of a three year grant from the California Wellness Foundation and with
proposals projected or pending with four other likely funders, the Collaborative is in a strong
financial position moving into 2010.
The Collaborative’s work is critical to ensuring that the reproductive health and safety of nail
salon workers is protected.

Organization: California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ)
City, State: Los Angeles, CA
Other Funding Sources: California Wellness, Ms., Hewlett, Ford, Roth Family
Foundation, Women’s Foundation of CA
Founded in 2004, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ) is a statewide policy and
advocacy organization promoting the reproductive and sexual health, rights and justice of
California Latinas within a social justice and human rights framework. The organization
transitioned to independent 501(c)(3) status in 2008 after being a project of Community
Partners’ Incubator Program. CLRJ works for public policy that reflects the needs of Latinas,
their families and communities so that all Latinas – including low-income, undocumented,
LGBTQ and youth -- have access to culturally and linguistically appropriate, comprehensive,
accurate, and unbiased reproductive and sexuality health information and services. It
accomplishes this through targeted, culturally-based policy advocacy, alliance-building,
community education and communications strategies geared toward educating and mobilizing
Latinas and youth, within Latino communities and at the state level.
CLRJ has three goals:
• To increase reproductive health care access for underserved Latinas;
• To increase the resources available to, and leadership of, young Latinas; and
• To build alliances and networks that strengthen the CA RJ movement.
CLRJ provides a voice to Latinas’ reproductive health and justice priorities in order to educate
policymakers, advocates and the media. To shape state policy, CLRJ produces policy briefs and
factsheets, and builds relationships with legislators and their staff. At the community level, CLRJ
convenes forums, conducts trainings with other social justice allies, and reaches out to Latino
media outlets. To build a powerful RJ movement in California, CLRJ leads and participates in
more than 70 coalitions, boards, and networks, engaging other sectors such as immigrant,
youth, and criminal justice. A collaborative spirit fuels CLRJ’s work to promote cross-movement
and cross-issue alliances.
Highlights:
A few highlights in the last year include:
• Defeated Proposition 4 in 2008, the third consecutive parental notification ballot measure
in CA since 2004, through the RJ Alliance co-convened with Asian Communities for
Reproductive Justice;
• Secured CA’s first Health Education Content Standards adopted by the State Board of
Education;
• Supported the Sexual Health Education Accountability Act that went into law effective
January 1, 2008; and
• Hosted the first CA RJ Action Summit with community members and social justice
groups represented.

CLRJ’s outcomes during 2009 have had significant impacts on the strength and effectiveness of
the organization and the RJ movement in CA:
1) Continue working for comprehensive sex ed through culturally competent curriculum and
leadership development of advocates and promotoras, especially Central Valley Latinas: In
Oct. 2009, the Governor suspended the development of all instructional curriculum until
2014, including sexual health education materials, through a line-item veto in a budget trailer
bill. The action was unexpected by both the legislature and advocacy groups. CLRJ has
identified priorities for 2010 that will address this pitfall through two activities: 1) advocacy
with the State Superintendent of Instruction to develop potential legislative fixes, and 2)
developing a comprehensive policy that secures the implementation of current sex ed
policies. Earlier in the year, CLRJ successfully mobilized over 50 organizations and
individuals to support implementation of SB 71 principles within the state’s Health Education
Content Standards. A recent CLRJ community forum on comprehensive sex ed in Tulare
County was attended by 40 people, and the organization is collaborating with ACT for
Women and Girls in the same region to develop at least one campaign to ensure local
implementation of the law in a key school district.
2) Inform CA policymakers and advocates about its policy platform and build strong
partnerships with legislators and their staff: Over the past year, CLRJ organized a variety of
timely campaigns that built on past mobilization efforts among partners and communities. In
early 2009, CLRJ shifted its focus from an annual statewide budget analysis to develop a
reproductive justice-based health care reform campaign. Since then, CLRJ has pursued
opportunities to inject an RJ analysis into the ongoing national health care reform debate,
specifically highlighting low-income Latinas, immigrant women, and women of color.
Concurrently, CLRJ developed a state health insurance policy brief that has informed
debate about the importance of maintaining CA’s public health programs in light of the fiscal
crisis.
3) Support community Latinas and youth to develop policy advocacy and communication skills,
and engage allied organizations and their networks to collaborate on a CA RJ Policy and
Action Agenda: In order to address the health, rights and justice of young Latinas, CLRJ
made a slight change in direction to address the current positioning of “teen pregnancy”
within the Latina community. By organizing a strategy roundtable with National Latina
Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) and other national leaders, advocates and
activists, CLRJ has begun to lay a foundation for alternative community-based frameworks
that counter negative stereotypes and images. One of its most notable efforts is the
“Demand Dignity! California Communities Against the HPV Vaccine Mandate for Immigrant
Women and Girls” campaign which challenged a recent mandate by Centers for Disease
Control (CD.C.) that all females between the ages of 11-26 who apply for permanent
residency in the U.S. must acquire a Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine. CLRJ
partnered with leading immigrant rights organizations, Mexican American Legal Defense &
Educational Fund and Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles as well as
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum to overturn the mandate, which was
officially lifted by the CD.C. this November.
CLRJ accomplished its programmatic goals and continues to move its distinctive and ambitious
agenda, exceeding expectations within a fluctuating political environment. CLRJ has established
strong relationships with important state legislators, such as Assembly members Mary Salas
and Carol Liu, who support its RJ policy platform.

2010 Plan:
In 2010, CLRJ will:
• Continue to strengthen the implementation of SB 71, at the state and local level;
• Inform and build strong partnerships with policymakers and advocates about the RJ
policy platform; and
• Develop the leadership of community-based and young Latina advocates to develop
policy advocacy and communications skills; and
• Engage allied organizations and their networks to collaborate in the development of a
CA RJ Policy and Action Agenda.
CLRJ will continue to participate as a founding member of EMERJ, and a member of the
SisterSong Management Circle and the NLIRH National Policy Advocacy Committee. It is
leading several key RJ movement building efforts, including partnering with Justice Now! to
integrate incarcerated women into the RJ movement; and advising a new Family Violence
Prevention Fund project to address the implications of violence on Latinas. CLRJ will use these
alliances to build long-term power and to lead grassroots policy and voter mobilization efforts
targeting Latina/o communities, communities of color and social justice allies. CLRJ will
continue to use its Alliance Network comprising organizational leaders, advocates and
community members in CA and nationwide to increase mobilization and build the base of
support on RJ policies.
CLRJ understands that it is essential to infuse the growing RJ movement with the voice of CA
Latinas and is equipped to take these difficult times head-on by expanding advocacy driven by
California’s Latina communities. Gaining its own 501(c)(3) status in 2008, CLRJ has assembled
the components of a solid organizational infrastructure. Its staff has grown to five full-time staff
and one part-time employee, including a Senior Research Coordinator, and two internal
promotions. Its staff and Board of Directors are Latinas of diverse socio-economic and training
backgrounds.
To ensure sustainability and to build capacity, CLRJ has built up its finance and budget
infrastructure via new financial management software, strong financial policies and procedures,
and an accountant for additional support and oversight. CLRJ has secured fifteen grants and
most recently has received $33,000 from new funders for a total of $687,609 for FY09;
$271,667 for FY10 with projected funds of $425,000 in grants and $22,000 in other sources;
and $103,333 for FY11. Additionally, CLRJ plans to launch an intensive planning process to
diversify funding sources, and will develop an individual and major donor program, along with
regional fundraising receptions, to celebrate its five year anniversary in 2010.
CLRJ’s work is essential to building a California RJ movement whose policy and advocacy
strategies and priorities are reflective of needs of Latinas.

Organization: Choice USA (CUSA)
City, State: Washington, DC
Other Funding Sources: Packard, Ford, Tides/Hewlett, OSI, Goldman, General
Service, Ms., Educational Foundation of America, Merck,
Moriah, Gerbode, Huber
Founded in 1992, Choice USA (CUSA) is a national, youth-led organization that increases and
sustains the involvement and leadership of young people in the RJ movement. CUSA works
through 41 college and high school campus affiliates in 22 states to train leaders and support
student-led organizing campaigns to increase the availability of reproductive information and
services. CUSA has a base of 1,200 active members and leaders who represent another 15,000
young people reached through chapter events and an online community. It engages its affiliates
through trainings and on-site technical assistance, and links campus-based campaigns to a
national policy agenda. This agenda is currently focused on Sex [+], a national policy campaign
to win access to medically accurate comprehensive sexuality education through passage of the
federal Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act. In addition, CUSA supports campus
organizing efforts on a range of issues, with a particular focus on educating and protecting youth
from pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers and companies that target young women for egg
donation. CUSA’s core demographic is college students, ages 18-25. People of color comprise
50 percent of the staff and board and 33 percent of the membership. Twenty five percent of
CUSA chapters are led by young WOC.
Through its Reproductive Justice Organizing Academy, CUSA provides skill training in
grassroots organizing, voter action, and campaign strategy; issue based training on
contraception access, and the link between RJ and other social justice issues; and members-
only trainings through a National Membership Conference and lobby day, a regional RJ
Leadership Institute, and a Train the Trainer workshop. CUSA trains young women in its
chapters, as well as the youth membership of other leading youth and reproductive health rights
and justice organizations such as Planned Parenthood, United States Student SisterSong,
Advocates for Youth, and National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.
Highlights:
CUSA has:
• Won 2009 passage of the Nominal Drug Pricing Provision of the 2009 federal Omnibus
Appropriations Act, putting affordable contraception back in the hands of millions of
students and low-income women. This provision overturned language in the federal
2007 Deficit Reduction Act, which had prevented student health care centers, local
pharmacies, and family planning providers from purchasing and selling contraceptives at
a discounted price.
• Helped move the FDA to approve Emergency Contraception for ages 17 and older
(previously 18 and over); and
• The largest youth membership base and college campus presence of any RJ
organization in the US.

CUSA made progress on its goals and shifted its direction in a few areas:
1) Develop the Leadership of 350 young women through 16 Academy trainings. Choice USA
trained 440 young people through 19 Academy trainings. Demand for training continues to
outstrip organizational capacity; for example, over 130 young people applied for 35 positions
in the Southern Reproductive Justice Leadership Institute, which featured national and
regional experts addressing a range of issues including the impact of HIV in the South,
religion and reproductive rights, and how young people are targeted by anti-choice
campaigns. Sixty five percent of training and annual membership conference participants
were WOC.
2) Engage 50 percent of the membership in at least one of three national organizing
campaigns. Choice USA surpassed its target of 50 percent participation on its affordable
birth control campaign, which ended in victory this March (see description of Nominal Drug
Pricing provision under above ‘highlights’ section). While several large advocacy
organizations worked on this campaign, CUSA delivered the strongest youth presence,
mobilizing 2,000 youth from 16 of its 21 chapters. Students met regularly with members of
Congress in their home districts and in D.C. They moved two college administrations
(Willamette University and University of Michigan) to publicly endorse the campaign as an
issue of higher education access. The Illinois chapter was instrumental in moving Rep.
Bobby Rush to support the Provision and Rep. Joseph Crowley of NY publicly
acknowledged CUSA for its work on this campaign, citing the importance of Congress
hearing real stories about birth control access directly from youth.
Three campuses were active in the Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) campaign: The 25-
member University of Michigan chapter mobilized an 800-person network that forced a local
CPC to stop deceptive advertising by removing all-options counseling language from their
materials. The national aspect of this campaign has stalled with the postponement of Stop
Deceptive Advertising of Women’s Services Act - now scheduled to be introduced in 2011.
The Egg Donation campaign is focused on localized member education, not policy change.
3) Grow the membership base from 32 to 50 campus chapters, from 7,000 to 15,000 online
community members through Facebook, MySpace, online campaigns and from a 7 to 20-
person Choice Words blog team. CUSA has successfully grown its membership base to 41
campus chapters, a 15,000-person online community, and a 14-person blog team. An
estimated 1,200 students are actively engaged with CUSA campaigns at the grassroots
level and can be mobilized regionally. CUSA has also expanded its reach through
partnerships with Advocates for Youth and National Women’s Health Network (which
forwards CUSA action alerts to their respective memberships), and Generation Alliance
(GA) a national network of youth organizations dedicated to civic engagement. As a new
member of the GA steering committee CUSA has helped large youth organizations such as
the United States Students Association integrate RJ into their member activities, reaching
thousands of students.

2010 Plan:
In the coming year, CUSA will:
• Support passage of the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act by recruiting
seven new Congressional co-sponsors, engaging 75 percent of the CUSA membership
base in advocacy, and connecting nine chapters to local sex ed coalitions. The REAL
Act, would, for the first time, provide federal funding to implement comprehensive sex ed
in public schools;
• Establish 10 new CUSA Chapters and recruit 200 new members; and
• Engage 300 young people through 10 trainings, 100 youth in a national Advocacy Day,
and others through 40 issue-based workshops on RJ and environmental justice, crisis
pregnancy centers, egg donation and comprehensive sex ed.
The timing of CUSA’s work is critical since young people are projected to comprise 30 percent
of the electorate by 2015 and will be essential to protecting reproductive rights long term. The
window of opportunity for educating and engaging this generation during their politically-
formative high school and college years is now. According to a May 2009 Gallup Poll, a majority
of Americans called themselves “pro-life” for the first time since 1995, mirroring a recent Center
for American Progress study which found that while today’s young people are the most
progressive generation yet, a significant plurality (47 percent) believe that “human life begins at
conception and must be protected from that point forward.” Conservatives are winning the war
over reproductive ideology in part because they are investing deeply in youth leadership and
organizing – dedicating more than $40 million a year to developing the next generation of anti-
choice voters. Meanwhile, in response to the current economy, several leading progressive
organizations, including NARAL, Planned Parenthood and People for the American Way, have
made significant cuts to youth-based programming.
Last year, CUSA proved it could flex its organizing muscle on a national scale, bringing a
powerful youth voice to bear on a successful coalition campaign for affordable contraception.
Sex ed is a logical and timely next step. It is the number one RJ issue priority for youth in the
U.S. and one that is gaining national attention under the new Administration. While a strong
network of organizations working on sex ed already exists, CUSA’s large base would certainly
strengthen it.
CUSA has raised 89 percent of its 2009 budget, which increased from $929,000 to $950,000
during the course of the year - and 37 percent of its 2010 budget, which is projected at
$938,000. Still, CUSA will need to bring on new funders and donors in order to meet their 2010
budget due to the economic downturn. Currently 92 percent of CUSA’s budget is derived from
foundations, six percent from grassroots fundraising, and two percent from earned income.
CUSA plans to do more fundraising from its online and alumni community in the coming year,
but developing a real grassroots funding base will take several years and an explicit program to
do so.
Support for CUSA is important to bringing youth power to the fight for sex ed.

Organization: Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and
Reproductive Rights (COLOR)
City, State: Denver, CO
Other Funding Sources: General Service, Ms. Foundation for Women, Third Wave
Foundation, Colorado Health Foundation,
Ford
Founded in 1998, COLOR is a grassroots non-profit organization that is building a base of
young Colorado Latina advocates for reproductive justice. COLOR protects and promotes
Latina reproductive health and justice by engaging young Latinas and their families in
education, civic participation, leadership opportunities, and social change. As the only
reproductive rights organization in Colorado led by and for Latinas, COLOR takes a values-
based, multi-issue approach to reproductive health and justice to address the root causes of
health disparities, lack of life choices, and obstacles to self-determination. COLOR involves the
Latino community in the creation of comprehensive sexuality education curriculum to ensure
that trainings incorporate Latino cultural values and that the process builds the leadership of
community members. Its goal is to raise the visibility of RJ in the immigrant rights and
progressive sector and the visibility of immigrant rights in the reproductive rights sector.
COLOR’s core projects are:
Latinas of Vision (LOV): A community based after-school program that organizes Latinas ages
12 to 24 around RJ issues through sexuality education, political education, and leadership
development. Active in one middle school and two high schools in Denver, LOV conducts peer
education on sexuality and reproductive issues, testifies before the Denver school board for
high school contraception and condom distribution, organizes events and encourages youth
civic engagement. It collaborates with the Denver Health School-Based Clinics and the Denver
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Partnership.
Latina Health Summit (LHS): An annual convening for the past three years of Latino community
members to develop skills and leadership around health issues, with a major focus on
reproductive health and justice.
Latinas Increasing Political Strength (LIPS): Formerly the Latina Initiative, LIPS focuses on civic
engagement activities and involves COLOR’s constituents in the policy and advocacy process.
Highlights:
Some of COLOR’s recent victories are:
• Helped to defeat the first personhood initiative ever introduced in Colorado (Amendment
48), and for the first time in U.S. history, defeated an equal opportunity/affirmative action
ban (Amendment 46) in the 2008 elections;
• Blocked anti-immigrant legislation including the compulsory E-Verify, which would have
required employers to participate in a federal electronic-verification program to confirm
the citizenship or immigration status of new hires, and the statewide Vehicle Impound
ordinance, which would have required the police to impound the car of any driver found
to be driving without a license; and
• Helped win state legislation that mandates all public schools in Colorado to teach sexual
health education in a science-based, medically-accurate, and comprehensive manner.

COLOR has met or surpassed all of its goals:
1) Increase participation in LOV’s after-school programming, host the fourth Latina Health
Summit to develop new reproductive justice activists, and continue to provide technical
assistance for organizational allies: COLOR continues to engage young Latinas (and a few
young men) in its LOV program, conducting peer-to-peer education on sexuality education
and civic engagement. COLOR is currently evaluating LOV’s effectiveness. After a
successful 2009 LHS, COLOR will host its fifth annual event in fall 2010, anticipating at least
125 participants in the one-day event. In addition, COLOR continues to provide technical
assistance and will partner with Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center, National Latina
Institute for Reproductive Health and Mujeres Unidas de Idaho.
2) Grow active membership in LIPS and engage young Latinas through trainings on strategic
communications, media outreach, leadership development, and education about ballot
issues: COLOR has seen significant shifts in engagement among youth participating in
LIPS. The young women are dedicated volunteers, donate to the organization, sit on
committees for other projects, and are even transitioning to the organization’s board of
directors. The LIPS program is creating a political action toolkit to help communities across
the country replicate the program. During 2010, LIPS participants will continue to engage
the community around 2010 ballot initiatives by canvassing door-to-door in key
neighborhoods, participating in and hosting community forums, hosting home-based
cafecitos, and other civic engagement strategies. Through the 2010 Colorado Latina/o
Advocacy Day, COLOR and its partners will engage at least 175 Latinas in direct lobbying
for the interests of the Latino community.
3) Outreach to legislators and regulatory agencies educating them about the issues most
important to Latinas, and participate in leadership positions within regional and national
coalitions and networks: During the 2009 legislative session, COLOR testified for four bills,
including Birth Control Protection Act, Designated Beneficiaries, and Immigrant Children's
Improvement Act and, as a result, played a role in the passage of seven bills at the state
level. COLOR is expanding its capacity to contact elected officials and is also developing
relationships with officials in the state Departments of Education and the Public Health and
Environment. Over the past year, COLOR has co-convened three different coalitions:
Denver Public Schools Advocacy Coalition; Campaign for Healthy Colorado Youth; and the
Field Committee of Colorado Voice, a c-3 roundtable that was the anchor for all of the
organizing that took place in 2008. COLOR is in the process of developing state guidelines
for sexual health/sexuality education and expansion of access to reproductive health care
services in public insurance programs.
Last year, Colorado was threatened by ballot measures attacking affirmative action and women.
Amendment 48 would have established that "life begins at conception" and would have not only
outlawed abortion, but would have also led to bans on birth control. Through the collaborative
work of COLOR and other progressive organizations, Amendment 48 was defeated by a large
margin. However, a new organization has already formed to sponsor a similar measure, the
Colorado Fetal Personhood Amendment, for the 2010 ballot.
2010 Plan:
COLOR’s work plan for 2010 includes:
• Conducting the third year of LOV’s afterschool programming and Summer LOV, hosting
the fifth annual Latina Health Summit, and providing technical assistance and
educational presentations as requested by allies;

• Expanding its base of supporters and activists, building power and influence in Denver to
shift the policy realm on multiple levels, and opposing any “personhood” ballot initiative
in 2010; and
• Winning culturally proficient, comprehensive sexuality education within Denver Public
Schools and establishing state guidelines for comprehensive sex ed in Colorado.
Through its coalition work, COLOR has positioned itself as an expert in women of color policy in
the state. COLOR is currently co-chair of the Campaign for Healthy Colorado Youth in
partnership with Planned Parenthood, NARAL, ACLU, and CO Organization on Adolescent
Pregnancy, Parenting, and Prevention. COLOR continues to play an active role in state
alliances with Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and Protect Families Protect Choice, and at
the national level with 3rd Wave Reproductive Health and Justice Initiative and the EMERJ
SexEd! cohort.
COLOR’S 2009 budget is $350,500, and the large commitments in 2008 allowed the
organization to add a new full time RJ and Advocacy coordinator in January 2009. In 2010,
COLOR projects a $400,000 budget, a small but significant increase for this organization,
reflecting its growing national status. Proposals are pending at Colorado Voice/Gill Foundation,
General Service Foundation, Hispanics In Philanthropy, and Advocates for Youth, and COLOR
has about $160,000 committed for 2010, thanks to multi-year grants.
COLOR’s greatest challenge for 2010 is the pending transition to a new executive director. Jacy
Montoya began with COLOR in 1998 as a volunteer and has served as the E.D. since 2005. Her
contributions to the success of COLOR have created a stronger organization and RJ movement
in Colorado. To guide the process, the organization has created an inter-generational committee
of stakeholders to select the next executive director and plan for three months of overlap that
includes organization-wide training and relationship building. In addition, COLOR will update its
existing strategic plan, and carry out additional organizational development plans including
creation of a board development curriculum, diversification of funding sources, and expansion of
the board of directors.
COLOR spearheads exceptional base and power building work in Colorado and is a leader in
the national RJ movement.

Organization: Faith Aloud (FA)
City, State: St. Louis, MO
Other Funding Sources: Ms. Foundation and Sunnen Foundation
Since 1982, FA (formerly Missouri Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice) has invoked the
moral power of religious communities to guarantee reproductive choice through education and
advocacy. FA gives voice to the RH/RJ issues of people of color, those living in poverty and
other underserved populations. Previously the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice’s
(RCRC) strongest state affiliate, FA disaffiliated from RCRC in 2008, re-positioning itself as a
regional organization committed to the belief that a woman should be free to make RH choices
according to her own conscience and faith. Bringing together people of diverse faiths through its
work with multiple religious communities, FA promotes RJ, sexual autonomy, and access to RH
care. FA’s work is grouped into four program areas: 1) Clergy Faith Aloud, which provides a
peaceful presence at clinics, training in All-Options and Reproductive Loss Pastoral Care; 2)
Community Education, which includes printed materials and educational presentations; 3)
Public Policy for all work related to MO state law; and 4) My FaithAloud (formerly, Spiritual
Youth for Reproductive Freedom - SYRF) for all work led by those under 30.
The political climate in MO, the heart of the Bible belt, is increasingly conservative.
Comprehensive sex education was removed from all public schools in 2007 and conservative
legislators keep introducing new legislation to limit teens’ access to contraceptives and RH
information. FA shares a compassion and reasoned theological perspective to offset the public
perception that religion opposes all things having to do with sexuality—including sex ed, sexual
activity for pleasure, same-sex relationships, contraception and abortion. FA believes that the
fight for reproductive rights and justice must be led by young people and primarily trains young
adults to change public perception and improve public policy in MO.
Highlights:
As Missouri Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, FA’s organizational achievements
include:
• Partnered in a statewide coalition in 2008 that achieved the first prevention of passage
of restrictive RH bills in ten years.
• Developed the highest level of student programming and recruited the largest amount of
youth volunteers of the RCRC chapters, surpassing Illinois and Iowa.
• Established itself as a major player in the struggle for RJ statewide and beyond by
training activists and counselors in several states.

FA has made good progress in 2009, even with a severe reduction in staff capacity:
1) Engage in a multi-faceted communications plan to disseminate messages and expand
knowledge of RJ to urban and rural communities in MO: Due to the recession, FA leaned
heavily upon online communications. My FaithAloud members, young adult interns, and
volunteers wrote a series of 10 brochures about RJ and produced eight YouTube video
brochures: http://www.youtube.com/user/FaithAloud. Videos were posted on the FA website
and Facebook to demonstrate a new shift in religious thought about sexuality and RH. FA

earned print and broaD.C.ast media coverage, including: five articles in Glamour Magazine,
The Washington Times, The St. Louis Dispatch and Vital Voice and four stories on Public
News Services statewide, a progressive radio news service:
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/8067-1.
2) Collaborate on state policy advocacy campaigns with other RJ groups: FA collaborated,
shared information and mobilized around RJ policy with eight ally organizations this year,
producing a stronger movement with shared language between issues. Clergy testified
before committees in the state legislature, spoke to media and preached sermons exposing
hundreds of religious communities to RJ. Consequently, FA was successful in building
opposition to the Coerced Abortions Act, which proposed new restrictions on abortion,
collaborating with anti-sexual assault advocates who gained support from sympathetic
conservative legislators. In addition, because legislators heard similar messages from many
perspectives, the Pharmacy Refusal Act was defeated and, for the second year in a row, no
new restrictions were placed upon access to abortion and contraception in MO.
3) Train 40 individuals to lobby for reproductive justice and conduct comprehensive sex
education programs for all ages in congregations: Lack of resources meant that FA did not
do a formal lobbying training this year, but, instead, did organizing online and provided
lobbying training to 39 young people as they rode Lobby Day buses to the state capitol in
Jefferson City. In addition to young adult clergy testimony, youth lobbyists spoke individually
with legislators about the importance of prevention and encouraged three new legislators to
support the Prevention First Act despite it not passing, which would have secured
comprehensive sex ed in the schools, Plan B access for rape survivors, and prevented
government interference with women’s access to contraceptives. They also contributed to
the defeat of the two restrictive RH bills mentioned previously. FA also trained young adults
to conduct comprehensive sex education in their congregations, other faith-based groups
and retreats to provide accurate sexual health information unavailable in MO public schools.
4) Provide spiritual counseling to families concerning pregnancy, reproductive loss, abortion
and sexual health by training more than 50 clergy and health workers: Seventy-nine people
(half under 30) including clergy, seminarians, and abortion clinic workers were trained to
counsel women who have had abortions. In addition, FA initiated a toll-free counseling line
and distributed videos of clergy supporting abortion decisions. Counseling videos focused
on providing a new framework for counseling, distinguishing between healthy and harmful
religious thinking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_kYvuEH1Uo&feature=channel.
Videos have received accolades from across the country and have provided counselors and
clinics with a new resource. FA also initiated religious training to Abortion Care Network
clinics nationally.
Upon becoming an independent organization, FA carried out its goals to expand RJ work and
become more vocal in support of LGBTQ rights. This year, FA participated in and helped
organize Pride Fests in: St. Louis, Springfield, Columbia, Rolla and Belleville, resulting in 260
new LGBTQ members. FA also entered into a formal collaboration with Privacy Rights for
Missourians (PROMO), a Missouri LGBT advocacy organization, to be its religious organizing
arm.

2010 Plan:
In 2010, FA plans to continue work on its main goals to:
• Engage in robust strategic communications aimed at urban and rural communities in MO
with eight new radio news stories, plus regular use of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
• Become the religious advocate for reproductive justice in MO, working in collaboration
with other organizations.
• Strengthen this activist collaboration in order to win strong RJ and gender equity policies
and continue to forestall restrictive RH legislation.
FA continues to strengthen existing alliances with National Council of Jewish Women, Family
Counseling Center of MO PROMO, Teen Pregnancy and Prevention Partnership, Illinois
Caucus for Adolescent Health and other progressive organizations. FA is also a member of
national groups such as Causes in Common, SisterSong and Abortion Care Network and
regularly consults with National Advocates for Pregnant Women, Choice USA, SPARK, Pro-
Choice Public Education Project and the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and
Healing for public policy advice. FA is growing its youth base with the goal that one-third of its
database, two-thirds of all its paid staff and volunteers, and one quarter of its board will be
under the age of 30 by 2012. Currently, young adults represent 50 percent of staff, 37 percent
of Board and 80 percent of volunteers. Diversifying leadership, membership and outreach
continues to be a goal for the organization although progress has been slowed due to staff
reductions. FA’s Board continues to represent a wide variety of religious traditions.
Administrating a name change in a time of recession hurt FA in 2009. FA lost two of its
previous funders (MO Foundation for Health and Jesse Smith Noyes Foundation) due to
program closures, which resulted in the reduction of all full-time program positions to part-time,
leaving the executive director as the only full time employee. Individual donations have also
decreased 40 percent although numbers of donors have remained stable. As a result, FA’s
2009 budget decreased to $180,253 from $287,777 in 2008. Despite these challenges, FA has
been able to depend on its youth volunteers and interns to advance its work to reinstitute
comprehensive sex education and challenge restrictive RH policy in MO. In 2009, FA was able
to raise $38,000 in grassroots donations, in addition to over 400 new members ushered in by
youth leaders that are potential sources of volunteers and donors in the upcoming year. In
2010, FA plans to implement a diverse fundraising plan to apply to large number of foundations
and a volunteer development specialist to coordinate its annual awards banquet.
Conclusion: As the only organization actively bridging the faith and RJ communities in the
conservative and deeply religious state of MO, FA has proven its ability to shift religious
thinking on RJ issues and impact RH health policies. Despite a severely reduced budget, FA
has demonstrated a remarkable ability to tap volunteer resources and to build partnerships in
order to keep its work expanding and deepening.

Organization: Generations Ahead (GA), a project of the Tides Center
Other Funding Sources: Jessie Smith Noyes, General Service, Ms. Foundation for
Women, Moriah Foundation, Ford, Tides Foundation
Originally founded in 2004 as the Gender, Justice, and Human Genetics Program of the Center
for Genetics and Society, GA became an independent project in 2008. Its goal is to expand the
public debate and promote socially just policies on genetic technologies, such as biotechnology,
cloning, eugenics, and inheritable genetic modification. GA builds the capacity of organizations
and leaders in social justice movements to engage in the debate and ensure an affirmative role
for government in regulating technologies in order to avoid eugenic outcomes and the
commercialization of human life. It partners with diverse social justice movements (reproductive
health, rights, and justice; human rights; disability rights; LGBT rights; and racial justice) to
frame and develop an intersectional, multi-movement approach. GA injects a social justice
perspective into the technology debate, which has until now been dominated by those who
advocate for new commercial eugenics, and by corporations looking to develop and market
species-altering technologies to those who can afford them. GA’s core strategies are public
education, capacity building, coalition building and advocacy, and its four project areas are
reproductive health; rights and justice; racial justice and human rights; disability rights and
justice; and LGBTQ rights and justice.
Highlights:
In its five year history, GA has:
• Become the “go-to” organization for thoughtful information and analysis about
reproductive and genetic technologies known for its ability to bring diverse
constituencies together constructively.
• Published the groundbreaking report Facing Forward: The Fate of Race and Genetics in
the 21st Century.
• Organized opposition to the so-called Susan B. Anthony Parental Nondiscrimination Act
of 2008, a conservative effort to couch anti abortion activism as anti-racist and pro-
woman. GA was able to convene 34 key organizations that were being recruited to
support the bill and get them to sign on to a strong letter to Congress opposing the bill.
The bill was reintroduced in January 2009, but has lost its “stealth” edge thanks to GA’s
leadership debunking its “opposition” to race and sex selection.

1) Advancing a social/reproductive justice framework for genetic technologies that
demonstrates their relevance to multiple movements and constituencies. Working with
leaders in multiple social justice and rights-based movements, GA has developed a network
of over 200 organizations, organizing and participating in briefings, convenings, public
events, and transformational conversations. From these conversations, GA has put together
some 15 roundtables (four in the last year) to tackle tough topics such as the forensic use of
DNA; genetics, race and medicine; the ethics of egg “donations” and surrogacy, etc.

2) Expanding and strengthening the network of allies to take action through independent,
network and collaborative projects. GA has spoken at public forums and events throughout
the country including events hosted by: American Public Health Association, Association of
Reproductive Health Professionals, Facing Race, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
Harvard University, and Genetic Alliance.
3) Developing systems to track, evaluate and respond to policy. While GA has been able to
respond to policy at the national level and in CA quickly and well, funding shortfalls appear
to have limited its ability to create systems that allow it to work proactively.
4) Forming a multi-movement coalition. GA has been able to do this on an issue-by-issue
basis, and because it has engaged in so much convening and conversation, it is able to
bring unlikely allies together quickly and effectively. This is one of the most consistent and
impressive aspects of GA’s work.
2010 Plan:
GA’s work in 2010 is a direct continuation of 2009:
• Lead a campaign to defeat the California Human Rights Amendment. Projected to be on
the ballot in 2010, this fetal personhood initiative would designate all single-celled
embryos (fertilized eggs) as full human beings, with full human rights. If passed it would
undermine abortion rights for women who do not want to be pregnant, and block access
to fertility treatments for women who do want to be pregnant. It could limit the number of
eggs that can be fertilized, require that all embryos be implanted and brought to term,
and assign lawyers and the courts to fight for the "best interest" of embryos and fetuses.
• Expand outreach and strengthen organizational capacity-building to grow its network of
allies and partners.GA will deepen its relationships with ten RJ groups, including NLIRH,
ACRJ, CLRJ, SPARK and SisterSong; provide information and analysis on the
implications of genetic technologies for women’s health and reproductive rights to ten
large national reproductive rights organizations (including PPFA, ACLU, NARAL and
NOW); and continue to build the capacity of ten allied disability rights, racial justice and
LGBTQ rights organizations to develop cross movement campaigns and strategies.
• Build the capacity of allied organizations to engage on GA’s issues and participate in
cross-sector and policy advocacy activities. GA will create toolkits and other resources to
enable organizations to engage effectively in policy advocacy on genetic technology-
related issues, and will work with a small number of allies to develop and implement join
campaigns or activities on selected issues such as surrogacy and egg/sperm donation
and the “fertility” industry.
• Increase cross-sector engagement through collaborative projects. GA will hold two
convenings on the use of forensic DNA and an initial meeting with disability rights and
RJ leaders, physicians and genetic counselors to explore ways to deliver unbiased and
comprehensive information to women on pre and post natal diagnosed conditions.
• Continue state and national policy advocacy.
Reproductive genetic technologies pose some of the most ethically complicated issues of our
times - does the right to decide whether or not to be pregnant extend to a right to decide what
type of children one has? Do reproductive rights include a right to choose skin color, height,
sexual orientation, intelligence?
GA is ensuring that the leadership and perspective of women of color, people with disabilities
and LGBTQ people are included in these debates. GA believes their leadership, at the
intersections of the respective issues these groups address, will ensure that the many uses of

genetic technologies benefit all women, their families, and communities, rather than cause harm
or deepen existing social inequalities for some. GA is also ensuring that these communities do
not to miss this historical window of opportunity. GA asserts that if these communities do not
participate now in framing the debate, shaping key messages and developing pro-active policy
platforms, then the terms of the debate will be set to their disadvantage and they will be forced
to fight for small, defensive wins on this issue in the future.
GA brings an RJ framework to policy fights on genetic technologies. For example, in addressing
the CA fetal personhood initiative, while most reproductive rights organizations will focus on the
attack on abortion rights, Generations Ahead will also include a message about the rights of
women to have children and include access to assisted reproductive technologies as a part of
the debate. GA’s leadership in opposing the fetal personhood initiative in California creates an
important roadblock to the conservative organization Personhood USA, which is planning to
introduce personhood amendments in Florida, Missouri, Montana and California. This particular
fight also demonstrates the limits of GA’s organizational capacity under its current budget, as it
is only able to take on one of these four fights at the state level.
GA plays a unique role in the RJ and social justice movements and has done an excellent job
increasing the genetic technology “literacy” of activists and helping to stop potentially disastrous
policies masked as concerns about human rights. It has built a solid set of relationships, an
impeccable reputation as an information source, and a unique set of publications, toolkits and
other information. Its ability to move into greater leadership and to be more proactive is now
hampered only by financial resources. For 2008, GA projected a $699,000 budget and was only
able to raise about $580,000. For 2009, GA projected a $570,000 budget and has raised about
$435,000 as of August 31, 2009. For 2010, GA’s budget is $463,000—about $285,000 of that
amount is committed, with $200,000 pending (including the request to Tides). GA is, not
surprisingly, totally reliant on foundation support, a situation that is not likely to change anytime
soon, given the nature of its work.
GA leads pioneering work at the intersection of genetic technologies and RJ.

Organization: Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH)
City, State: Chicago, IL
Other Funding Sources: Ford, Ms., Irving Harris, Advocates for Youth,
Speh Family Foundation
Founded in 1977, ICAH is a statewide policy and grassroots advocacy organization that focuses
on three areas: increasing access to sexual health care, increasing access to comprehensive
sex education, and promoting comprehensive support for pregnant and parenting youth. To
achieve its goals, ICAH promotes a positive approach to adolescent sexual health and develops
youth leadership as a critical component of its policy and grassroots advocacy efforts. ICAH
asserts that reproductive freedom for youth must encompass the following freedoms: to prevent
pregnancy and disease through accurate information and access to contraception, to terminate
a pregnancy, and to bring a pregnancy to term and parent. ICAH engages and serves
marginalized young people, including immigrant, of color, low-income, LGBTQ, and pregnant
and parenting youth.
Through its youth leadership development activities, ICAH focuses on four program
components. The first is the Sexual Health Care Access Initiative that increases the availability
of condoms in schools, improves access to birth control, EC, and quality RH services (i.e. teen-
friendly clinics) and protects access to abortion by opposing parental notification/consent laws.
The second program focuses on comprehensive sex ed in IL schools through advocacy on the
local and state level to ensure that abstinence-only funding does not replace current standards.
The third program supports pregnant and parenting youth through the Young Parent Alliance
(YPA). The fourth program integrates youth into federal, state, and local policy advocacy and
ensures youth voices in a statewide RR partnership via a Youth Policy Council.
Highlights:
ICAH’s victories over the past few years include:
• Successfully pressured the governor of Illinois to reject all federal abstinence-only
funding as evidenced with the governor’s elimination of funding for abstinence programs
in his FY 2010 budget this year;
• Instrumental in winning a mandate for comprehensive sex ed in all Chicago Public
Schools in 2006 and in expanding this victory to two other cities, Urbana and Freeport, in
2009;
• Trained five youth organizers on RJ through the annual 5-day youth advocacy camp,
Action Out Loud!, and launched a new, 15-week popular education program called
School of Justice; and
• Provided advocacy skills training to 131 youth from five organizations around parental
notification for abortion that then raised public awareness about the issue within the
community, with lawmakers and through the media.

ICAH has accomplished their goals set out in last year’s proposal:
1) Spearhead a diverse coalition opposing parental notification using sophisticated polling and
messaging components: ICAH has been monitoring and tracking the legislative and legal
outcomes of the recent court ruling that is seeking to enforce the 1995 Parental Notice of
Abortion Act. The ruling will require all young women in Illinois to notify their parent or
guardian 48 hours before obtaining an abortion and has been undergoing a series of delays,
including concerns from the State Medical Disciplinary Board. On Nov. 4, 2009, the ACLU
successfully persuaded a circuit court judge to enter a temporary restraining order blocking
enforcement of the Act due to questions about whether it violated the Illinois Constitution.
ICAH is celebrating a victory along with the ACLU, who filed suit on behalf of reproductive
health providers, and is poised to challenge enforcement of this law. ICAH is developing
strategies for next steps and will continue to provide education, awareness and engagement
on parental notification at the grassroots level while the Act is held up in the courts. ICAH’s
E.D. published a full-page op-ed in the Sun Times when the announcement came out. At the
Action Out Loud! camp, young people wrote letters objecting the Act to legislators and are
also submitting letters of opposition online to the Chicago Tribune, who wrote two pieces
favoring the ruling. ICAH’s youth organizers recently completed a zine about how to
maneuver the judicial bypass. Instead of spearheading a coalition on this issue, which can
be tricky, ICAH is currently taking a step back to work on civic engagement, access,
education, and mobilization on multiple levels through more localized efforts.
2) Focus on comprehensive sex ed in Chicago schools: ICAH submitted a proposal the Grove
and Packard Foundations to work on the implementation of comprehensive sex ed in
Chicago schools in five zip codes with the most need, but the project was not funded
because it was thought to be too vast and too incremental. ICAH is well-positioned to
receive a grant from Chicago Community Trust to support a scaled back version of this
proposal, which will enable it to focus work in three communities: Inglewood, Roseland, and
N. Lawndale. ICAH sees this work as an opportunity to build infrastructure in these
communities, to become an ally in identifying sexual health issues, and to increase the
number of youth leaders. ICAH has received support from the Ford Foundation to engage
Chicago’s 30,000 teachers in implementation. In October, 2009 ICAH hosted a convening to
identify opportunities to improve teachers’ curriculum. ICAH will have follow-up meetings
with the Chicago Teachers Union to learn how to best insert and infuse sexuality education
into existing certification requirements, and through pre-service and in-service trainings.
3) Support pregnant and parenting youth: Prior to the current economic crisis, ICAH was
working to increase city funding for programs that support pregnant and parenting youth to
complete their education. This year, ICAH changed course, instead developing a Bill of
Rights for pregnant and parenting youth. ICAH is also advocating for a dedicated staff
person in the Specialized Services Department in Child Protective Services to ensure the
rights of youth are not violated. Youth rights are currently guaranteed by Title IX (Equal
Opportunity in Education Act) but are violated daily through school policies that hinder,
rather than facilitate, education success. ICAH’s Youth Policy Alliance is authoring the Bill of
Rights and youth will soon present testimony to school board officials on this document and
the addition of a Child Protective Services point person.
4) Integrate youth into federal, state, and local policy advocacy and ensure youth voices in
statewide partnerships:
To increase the leadership of youth organizers, ICAH has expanded its advocacy camp,
Action Out Loud!, and launched a 15-week popular education program called the School of

Justice that includes skill-building workshops on organizing, power dynamics, and media
relations for teens. These youth organizers were trained to engage their peers in advocacy
and to build community interest in RJ, and the issue of parental notification. In communities
where immigration status was seen as a barrier to accessing health care, that point of
intersection was integrated into their workshops. The School of Justice is the first time that
ICAH will provide ongoing education as a way to keep youth engaged. The School of Justice
participants are working on the Condom Accessibility Campaign (described below).
2010 Plan:
In 2010, ICAH will continue to work on its main goals by:
• Launching a Condom Accessibility Campaign to make condoms accessible to youth
throughout Chicago, with an emphasis on at-risk youth, low-income youth, and
communities of color;
• Raising awareness about the recent parental notification ruling, with a long-term goal of
repeal;
• Leading mobilization efforts on implementation of the sex ed mandate through its
coalition work; and
• Supporting policies and funding for pregnant and parenting students to increase their
chances of completing their education.
ICAH has expanded the RJ movement by allying with non-reproductive justice organizations
such as unions. The organization continues to participate in the EMERJ Sex Ed Cohort and has
expanded its Youth Policy Council program from three members to 13. ICAH is diversifying its
Board of Directors to reflect the dominant, community demographic for whom it works and now
has three African Americans and one gay male on its Executive Committee. ICAH continues
build its reputation as a leader in teen sexual and reproductive health. They are living into the
transformative experience of becoming a heavily RJ focused organization.
ICAH laid off one full-time employee due to the economic downturn. It has since reduced the
operating budget for FY 2010 to $807,975 but has currently raised over half of this amount.
ICAH is expecting to secure the rest of its FY 2010 budget by January, and has a promising
relationship with the Chicago Community Trust. It has also secured $200,000 from the Ford
Foundation for FY 2011 and has been successful at securing multi-year grants. ICAH cut
expenses for all meetings where youth are not present and has restructured its fundraising
committee. It plans to host small fundraising events every other month, such as house parties,
AIDS walk/run events and salon nights. It will use its 5,000 member database to solicit online
donations, will cultivate relationships with major donors, and seek corporate contributions.

Organization: Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC)
City, State: San Francisco, CA
Organizational/Project Budget: $1,118,281/$268,253
Other Funding Sources: Organization: SF Foundation, Mitchell Kapor,
Common Counsel, Women’s Foundation of CA, East Bay
Community Fund, CA Fulfilling the Dream, IOLTA Project
Since 1978, LSPC has advocated for the human rights and empowerment of incarcerated
parents, children, family members and people at risk for incarceration. Led by formerly
incarcerated persons and their families, LSPC believes that our country’s growing dependence
on incarceration as a solution to social problems has resulted in a critical health crisis in low-
income communities of color. LSPC’s multifaceted approach includes grassroots organizing,
legal advocacy, policy advocacy, leadership development and coalition-building to develop
strong support for incarcerated women, their families and communities. LSPC’s program areas
include: Women’s Health, focusing on the health and conditions of confinement of women
prisoners who are elderly, pregnant or parenting young children; Habeas Project, securing the
release of domestic violence survivors serving time as a result of that violence; and All of Us or
None, organizing formerly incarcerated individuals to combat discrimination against people who
have been in prison and to advocate for policies that support more effective reentry. LSPC
defines RJ for incarcerated women as the right to determine if and when they will have children
and under what circumstances; the right to a healthy outcome to pregnancy (included but not
limited to the right to end an unwanted pregnancy); and the right to a continued relationship with
their children.
The Mothers from Behind the Wall (MBW) project spotlights and improves the conditions of
women and children in CA’s Community Prisoner Mother Program (CPMP), which enables 180
incarcerated mothers to live with their young children in six small community-based facilities.
CPMP facilities are run by non-profits contracted by the CA Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CD.C.R) to provide services to incarcerated mothers. Working with pregnant
women in prisons since 2003, LSPC launched MBW in 2007 after receiving numerous
complaints from mothers inside CPMP facilities about inadequate food, supplies and health care
for themselves and their children. This issue drew national attention in July 2007 when The New
York Times reported an unprecedented joint grievance filed by all of the women at a San Diego
facility, citing inadequate health care and a shortage of such basics as diapers, baby wipes, and
milk for their children. Working with NY Times reporter Solomon Moore (who wrote the story
cited above), a team of San Francisco State University public health students, and a network of
incarcerated women, LSPC has investigated and published a report on the health and wellbeing
of women and children housed in CPMP facilities. LSPC is now advocating for change with the
Department of Corrections while providing women within these facilities the tools they need to
advocate for themselves and their children.
Highlights:
A few victories won by LSPC:
• Instrumental in passing CA’s ban on shackling women prisoners during labor in 2006;
• Passed AB 2070, state legislation that extends the length of time that incarcerated
parents have to reunify with their children from six months to two years (enacted in
2009); and

• Created a Bill of Rights for incarcerated parents in consultation with formerly
incarcerated women who were in danger of losing their parental rights in 2009.

LSPC has met or surpassed its project goals to promote RJ for incarcerated women in CA:
1) Conduct outreach and build relationships with women housed at CA’s Community Prisoner
Mother Program (CPMP): During 2009, LSPC visited all six mother-infant facilities in CA. Its
next task is to develop a report that will outline recommended improvements to these
programs and present these recommendations to the CA Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation and legislators. LSPC also worked with incarcerated mothers to create a bill
of rights for incarcerated parents and is working on a grassroots organizing campaign to
restore the civil rights of people when they are released from prison. Lastly, LSPC has
surveyed county jails in California in order to assess their compliance with anti-shackling
laws and is beginning a campaign to end the shackling of pregnant women in county jails
when they are taken to court. They will advocate with county jail administrators and the state
legislature to create a policy of least restriction for all pregnant women being transported
outside of county jails.
2) Advance state or federal policy to promote RJ and to protect the right of self-determination
for incarcerated women: Last year, LSPC organized formerly incarcerated women to provide
testimony to the state legislature in support of AB 2070 (described in highlights above).
LSPC is now working to monitor implementation of this new law. LSPC is also tracking CA
legislation that bans shackling of pregnant prisoners while going to and from the hospital,
and implementation of laws that guarantee women access to safe and timely abortions.
3) Illuminate and address the needs of incarcerated mothers and their children: LSPC is
furthering their commitment to address the needs of incarcerated mothers and their children
through creating and disseminating a report about the impact of the Adoption and Safe
Families Act, a federal law that fast tracks the adoption of children whose parents are
incarcerated, on families impacted by incarceration. LSPC has worked closely with the CA
Research Bureau and the Center for Young Women’s Development on this study to collect
data from adoption records in San Francisco County in 1997 and 2007, before and after
implementation of the Act. The completed report will provide concrete statistical information
for op-ed and feature stories that will highlight the findings and create public support for
alternatives to incarceration for women with young children.
LSPC hosted a series of interviews on RJ for incarcerated women via a community radio
station, KPFA. They also have a monthly segment on KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio called,
“Without Walls,” and recently highlighted the connection between RR and prison reform.
Through this type of local work, LSPC has elevated RJ issues and the visibility of policies that
ensure the provision of RH services in prison and reduce the number of women incarcerated.

2010 Plan:
In 2010, LSPC will focus on three objectives:
• Stop the stealing of babies (fast-track adoptions) born to incarcerated women;
• Stop shackling of pregnant women who go from county jail to court; and
• Complete investigation of Mother-Infant Programs and call for concrete improvements.
In response to the current CA budget crisis, state policymakers are trying, for the first time, to
reduce the prison population. Although it has become more difficult to enact policy, LSPC is well
positioned to create real alternatives to incarceration through strong alliances with health,
education, and social service professionals and organizations. LSPC has the insight and
ground-up infrastructure necessary to expand the reproductive rights of women in prison.
Since its founding, LSCP has built coalitions with allies to advocate for the self-determination of
incarcerated women and has ensured that the needs of women in prison are part of the RJ
movement. Its national level work includes cross-movement strategies and projects with groups
such as National Advocates for Pregnant Women, National Network for Women in Prison, the
Rebecca Project for Human Rights, among other organizations. In 2008, LSCP joined a national
anti-shackling coalition and a national mothering initiative convened by the Rebecca Project that
includes many organizations on this docket (ACRJ, NLIRH, and SPARK). LSPC’s co-director is
again mentoring the criminal justice fellows of the Women’s Policy Institute of the Women’s
Foundation of California, and is exploring the possibility of this cohort taking on anti-shackling
issues on as a policy project.
Over half of LSPC’s staff and fifty percent of its board are formerly incarcerated persons or
family members. The majority of LSPC’s staff, board, and constituency are people of color and it
has significant LGBT representation. For the first time in years, the organization is facing a
budget shortfall. LSCP has managed to avoid lay-offs and is taking steps to reduce costs by
negotiating a 25 percent decrease in rent; not replacing two staff members, and reducing hours
and salaries by 10 percent for those staff members who are able to do so. The organization has
increased fundraising efforts by conducting its first phone bank to engage donors directly.
LSPC’s budget for 2009 is $1,118,281 and its 2010 budget reflects a decline to $940,672, of
which nearly 40 percent has been committed at this time. The MBW project budget is $268,253
and is 29 percent of LSPC’s overall budget. The MBW budget for FY10 is projected to be
$273,178, a slight increase due to added staff time to the project.

Organization: Migrant Health Promotion (MHP)
City, State: Welasco, TX
Organizational/Project Budget: 2,050,401 /$128,644
Other Funding Sources: Organization: Packard, Goldman, Ms., Noyes, Ettinger,
Project: Ms., Rio Grande Women’s Clinic
Founded in 1983, Migrant Health Promotion (MHP) builds on community strengths to improve
the health of farmworker families and their rural communities. Led by a majority Latina staff,
many of whom were farmworkers themselves, MHP develops, implements, and evaluates
community-based, culturally competent Community Health Worker (Promotora) programs
serving migrant labor camps in Michigan and the colonias (unincorporated settlements) on the
Texas-Mexico border. It also provides training and technical assistance to approximately 100
federally qualified health centers implementing similar programs across the nation. Promotoras
integrate information about health and the health care system into community culture, language
and value systems, thus reducing many of the barriers that migrant and seasonal farmworkers
have to accessing health services. With a focus on diabetes prevention, reproductive health,
mental and behavioral health, and children’s health, MHP is sustained by a commitment to work
closely with its constituents and by collaboration and resource sharing among area health and
social service agencies. It refers colonia women to services available through local clinics and
county health providers and advocates for increased funding for these services. It also
addresses the systemic root causes of poor health - including clinic policies, workplace rules,
camp and neighborhood environments or public policies – through health education, organizing
and advocacy, and popular education.
One of MHP’s core programs is La Voz Latina (LVL). Founded in 1999, LVL organizes Mexican-
American women and their families in Texas’ Lower Rio Grande Valley to advocate for
reproductive rights and greater access to reproductive health care and other social services.
LVL advances its long term goal to restore family planning and reproductive health services
funding in TX by organizing women in colonias to participate in local and statewide campaigns.
LVL leaders educate their communities through forums and health fairs and impact public policy
through direct action and visits to elected officials. As each colonia is organized, it is integrated
into the Local Latina de Abogacia (Local Latina Advocacy Network) which focuses on
reproductive health and includes such ally groups as Mujeres Unidas, Planned Parenthood, the
Women’s Clinic of South TX, and into state-level policy advocacy.
LVL operates in a culturally conservative and politically charged environment in the Rio Grande
Valley near the border region in South Texas. This is an area that encompasses four counties,
is rich in agriculture, and is home to the largest concentration of farmworkers in the U.S. The
population is comprised of primarily Mexican immigrants, Mexican-Americans, and non-Hispanic
White Texans and is distinctively separated by race, class, education, and language. It is a
microcosm of polarization and there is an unsaid rule of order for those residing in the colonias
– stay at the bottom. In terms of reproductive health care and services, Texas has long been a
battleground state with limited or no support for comprehensive sex ed in schools. Even when
there are policy victories, Texas, specifically the border region, tolerates little variance from the
mainstream and religious promotions. In 2009, lawmakers retained the $40 million designated
for family planning services for poor women but earmarked $5.5 million of that sum for the
“Alternatives to Abortion” program – a series of nonmedical “pregnancy crisis centers.”

Highlights:
LVL has accomplished the following:
• Participated in seven meetings with elected and non-elected officials, including city and
county commissioners, a judge, transportation company officials, and non-elected
community activists/opinion leaders on LVL’s priorities, including their expanding bus
route campaign last year;
• Received new political support from legislative officials who can be counted on as allies
to promote reproductive health issues;
• Gained a new bus route for several small communities that previously had no public
transportation, and will continue to work on further expanding bus routes to isolated
women without private transportation so they can travel to clinics for reproductive health
services.

La Voz Latina met its goals in 2008 through the following efforts:
1) Deepen its base by training and supporting current leaders to step into lead organizer roles
their colonias: Over the past year, to raise awareness of their work, LVL held community
meetings with over 1,400 women, some of whom are immigrants and most of whom have
never before participated in RJ work. One of the primary training vehicles used by LVL is to
prepare new leaders for radio interviews. Radio is a major source of news and information
for the colonia community. The women involved in LVL have deepened their engagement
significantly, through participation in marches, letter writing campaigns, and peer to peer
education on reproductive health education and services.
2) Expand organizing efforts into three new colonias in Hidalgo and Cameron Counties:
Through door-to-door outreach, LVL moved into four colonias last year: two in Cameron and
Hidalgo Counties respectively. The prominence of this project has given women living in
remote areas the leadership tools necessary to become active and take a more prominent
role within their communities. The promotoras and coordinators understand the connection
between the size of each colonia, how far it is from others, and the frequent familial
connections that are vital to effective outreach efforts. In addition to providing referrals to
colonia women for RH services, LVL also hosted twenty health fairs with nearly 1,700
attendees that enabled the community to become more familiar with and favorable towards
the work of LVL. The positive outcomes of their work have been covered in thirty media
outlets including Spanish print media, radio interviews, stories, or public service
announcements. Their online presence has increased with two YouTube videos featuring
their work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSdockkbAYE and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3-AcD.C.Bi1Q.
3) Strengthen the voices of Latinas and immigrants in regional and national RH and RR
networks through partnerships with National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
(NLIRH) and Planned Parenthood (PPFA): LVL continues to prioritize community action
events. In late 2008 it collaborated with NLIRH to organize the first march in Cameron
county for reproductive health. Eighty participants from both Cameron and Hildalgo counties
demanded funding for family planning, access to reproductive health education for parents
and adolescents, and no barriers to access (i.e. transportation). LVL also worked with PPFA
to host 20 health fairs where leaders distributed information about reproductive health and
other health topics to nearly 1,700 attendees.

2010 Plan:
In 2010, LVL will build the organizing capacity of women in the Lower Rio Grande Valley by:
• Increasing the leadership skills of community members through trainings on reproductive
health, comprehensive sex ed, domestic violence, radio interviews and a mentorship
program;
• Expanding colonia organizing efforts into new communities in Hidalgo County to develop
a strategy for the establishment of a transportation route;
• Distributing printed health provider and public transit materials at health fairs and
community meetings to improve access to reproductive health services in new and
existing project areas; and
• Collecting personal stories about immigrant experiences that will then be made available
to the press and public to lift up the voices of their community members in the
immigration debate.
The only RJ and/or women’s rights group organizing in the Valley, LVL has created an
environment in which matters of RJ, RR, and family planning are now openly discussed among
more than 1,000 participants. It has achieved greater access to services by organizing
community involvement and winning transit expansions for unincorporated areas. LVL has also
provided a tremendous level of emotional and spiritual support to women who were afraid to
leave their homes, who knew little about organized social change activity, and/or who de-
prioritized their reproductive health behind their daily responsibilities.
MHP partners with nearly 20 local and national organizations, some of which are focused on RH
and RJ, but most of which work on health or other social services more broadly, including
Planned Parenthood, Rio Grande Women’s Clinic, Hidalgo County Health Department, to name
a few. It works with members of the Latina Advocacy Network (LAN), sponsored by NLIRH, and
serves on the LAN Council. It has a predominately Latina staff and board, many of whom
worked with or as seasonal farmworkers. MHP’s FY 09-10 began Oct. 1, 2009 and it has
secured all of its $2 million budget. LVL’s has secured 70 percent of its FY 09-10 budget of
$128,644 and will continue to be supported by the Ms. Foundation and the Rio Grande
Women’s Clinic. The LVL project is supported by four staff members: one full-time and one part-
time Promotora, a Program Coordinator, and a Project Director.

Organization: National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW)
City, State: New York, NY
Other Funding Sources: Vanguard Endowment, Ford, General Service,
Jessie Smith Noyes, Overbrook, Irving Harris,
Drug Policy Alliance
Founded in 2001, NAPW is a legal advocacy intermediary organization created to ensure that
women do not lose their Constitutional and human rights as a result of pregnancy; that addiction
and other problems are addressed as health, rather than criminal, issues; that families are not
needlessly separated based on medical misinformation; and that pregnant and parenting
women have access to the full range of RH and non-punitive drug treatment services. By
protecting the legal rights and human dignity of all pregnant women, with a particular focus on
young, low-income, and drug-using women of color, NAPW broadens and strengthens the RJ,
drug policy reform, birthing rights, and other social justice movements. Its work encompasses
litigation, litigation support, legal advocacy, national organizing, and public education and
outreach. NAPW does some work at the local level, but its primary role is to support grassroots
organizations with tools, support, legal strategies, and information on critical fights and potential
alliances.
Highlights:
NAPW has established itself as a thought leader, convener and catalyst of the national RJ
movement. Some examples of its leadership include:
• Providing, in 2009 alone, legal representation to about two-dozen women whose
reproductive and human rights were at risk and filing scores of amicus briefs in cases
that address the rights of pregnant women, fight the criminalization of pregnancy and
protect RH providers.
• NAPW, Legal Services of New York and New York University School of Law co-
sponsored a first-ever continuing legal education training on drug use, pregnancy,
treatment, and parenting in February 2009.
• The groundbreaking 2007 National Summit to Ensure the Health and Humanity of
Pregnant and Birthing Women brought together representatives of the RJ, RH, criminal
justice, human rights, drug policy reform, birth rights and immigrant communities to build
new relationships and common goals.
• A national network of over 2000 local and national activists and resource contacts
engaged in organizing, public education, political action and media outreach around a
shift from a criminal justice to a public health approach, to the intersecting issues of
pregnancy, drug use, risk of HIV infection and transmission and unaddressed mental
health issues.

NAPW continued to build its organizational capacity and to play a catalytic role in the field in
2009. Last year, NAPW sought funding to:
1) Expand its legal advocacy efforts, especially regarding child welfare: NAPW continued to be
the national “go-to” organization for legal assistance and representation for women whose
pregnancies have been criminalized in some way, and was directly involved in some 20
cases nationwide. Some examples: NAPW’s legal advocacy and public education freed a
young Missouri women charged with murder for having suffered a stillbirth which the state
claimed (with no scientific evidence) was the result of her drug use. Moreover, NAPW
convinced the state to stop efforts to find similar cases. NAPW held a first-ever continuing
legal education training on drug use, pregnancy, treatment, and parenting in February, co-
sponsored by the NYU Law School and Social Work School. The one day event was
extremely successful and will be used as a model for similar CLE programs around the
country. NAPW continues to push on issues related to drug use and pregnancy within the
context of “child welfare” in order to stop the criminalization of pregnant women with
substance abuse problems and to address the larger questions related to treatment on
demand and family-centered treatment.
2) Continue to build local and national organizing efforts and coalition building to advance
progressive policy and programs and to halt attacks on RJ and the human rights of pregnant
women. NAPW regularly works with 350 organizations around the nation, and now has a
national activist database of more than 4000 names. It advised Center for American
Progress, NOW, ACLU, NARAL and Planned Parenthood in crafting reproductive health
agendas that were shared with the Obama transition team, and supports a variety of
coalitions and organizations protecting the civil rights of pregnant women and mothers
(Child Welfare Organizing Project, Moms Off Meth, and various state coalitions in NY, AR,
OK, ME, CO, ND, SC, SD).
3) Expand public education work. NAPW is now using Net 2.0 strategies to get its message out
directly. For example, Lynn Paltrow now has a blog on the Huffington Post. Now posting its
own videos on YouTube and other websites, the organization is reaching tens of thousands
of people regularly. In addition, Paltrow and other NAPW leaders are asked to speak at
conferences, law schools and other events on an almost weekly basis. NAPW also provides
“deep background” research to advance the RJ frame. For example, NAPW researched the
US Catholic Bishops Council to debunk its claims of support for the “dignity of life”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynn-m-paltrow/obama-the-bishops-and-the_b_204041.html.
It also researched the impact of so called “fetal rights” bills to demonstrate the extent to
which they have been used to criminalize women, not protect unborn children, and provided
an overview of the science of prenatal drug exposure and the accessibility of drug treatment
programs for pregnant women.
2010 Plan:
NAPW will continue its efforts to expand the human rights of all women. Its objectives continue
to be:
• Using judicial and legal activism to prevent the dehumanization of pregnant women and
the expansion of the drug war into women’s wombs.
• Using advocacy and public education to support legislation, public policy or ballot
measures that advance RJ and to oppose measures that hinder it.

• Reframing the abortion debate and bringing new allies and leadership into the RJ, drug
policy reform and social justice movements.
NAPW has experienced significant growth over the past 18 months: foundation contributions
increased by 50 percent between 2007 and 2008 while its budget grew from $727,000 in 2007
to $897,000 in 2009. Its 2010 budget is projected at $924,000. Less than 15 percent of NAPW’s
income comes from non-foundation sources (fees, consulting, individual contributions), but the
organization is developing new online contribution tools and major donor programs.
NAPW plays a unique and necessary role in the national movement – creating a new legal
framework rooted in RJ – and provides necessary support to grassroots organizations and
individual pregnant and birthing women now criminalized under current understandings of the
law. Its legal advocacy, legal and judicial education and effective issue framing make NAPW an
essential resource for the RJ movement.

Organization: National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
(NAPAWF), a project of the Tides Center
City, State: Washington D.C.
Other Funding Sources: Ford, General Service, Goldman, Moriah, Noyes, Ms.
California Wellness, Packard, Overbrook, California
Endowment, Haas Jr., Abrons
Founded in 1996, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) is the country’s
only national, multi-issue Asian Pacific Islander (API) women's organization. NAPAWF’s mission
is to increase the leadership, power and visibility of API women and girls, and advance social
justice and human rights through five strategies: leadership and base building; community and
public education; policy advocacy, multi-issue grassroots organizing; and strategic
collaborations. NAPAWF’s members are organized into 11 chapters: Washington, D.C., Seattle,
Ann Arbor, San Francisco/Bay Area, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Cloud MN, New
York City; Las Vegas, and Yale University. RJ is central to NAPAWF’s long-term vision for API
women and girls, addressed through work on access to healthcare, the lack of research and
documentation of the reproductive health needs of API women, and the reproductive and
environmental injustices faced by women in the nail salon industry. NAPAWF’s staff and
national governing board are 100 percent API women diverse in ethnicity, age, sexual
orientation, family status, education, class, immigration and expertise.
Highlights:
NAPAWF:
• Is the largest national API RJ organization in the U.S. and one of four WOC-led RJ
organizations working in Washington, D.C.
• Secured passage of a 2007 D.C. city council resolution waiving diplomatic immunity for
foreign nationals who traffic women.
• Played a supporting role in the 2008 defeat of Proposition 4, a California state parental
notification ballot initiative.

NAPAWF achieved much of what it planned to accomplish through last year’s RJ Fund grant:
1) It increased inter-chapter communication through monthly conference calls and offered
chapters more consistent support by designating a national staff person to serve as their
liaison throughout the year. NAPAWF’s new website is almost complete, and in 2010 will
allow chapters to update web-pages themselves in order to organize, advertise events and
share information.
2) NAPAWF undertook several national campaigns. It became lead organizer of a working
group of 35 civil rights, RH, public health, racial justice and youth organizations pushing the
U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (CIS) to remove the human papillomavirus (HPV)
vaccine from its list of mandatory vaccinations for immigrants seeking visas or permanent
residence. Many RJ groups opposed the vaccine, which is prohibitively expensive for many
immigrant women, because it is a barrier to changing immigration status and continues an
ugly legacy of forcing immigrant woman to serve as guinea pigs for new reproductive drugs

and vaccines. The working group targeted the Center for Disease Control (CD.C.) - who
oversees vaccinations and whose direction the CIS follows - directly through a sign on letter,
media interviews, a petition and direct advocacy with agency staff. The CD.C. agreed to lift
the mandate this November and this change will go into effect on Dec. 14, 2009.
3) NAPAWF also teamed with SisterSong and Generations Ahead to oppose the Prenatal
Nondiscrimination Act (HR 1822, also called the Susan B. Anthony/ Frederick Douglass
Act), authored by conservative Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ). While NAPAWF defeated a
previous incarnation of this bill handily in 2008, the current bill has 36 co-sponsors and is
gaining momentum. The bill would ban abortions based on sex or race and is promoted as a
human rights measure to end discrimination against women of color, citing high rates of
abortion in the African American community as “black genocide.” In fact, the bill is an
attempt to erode abortion rights and drive a wedge between feminist, pro-choice and racial
justice communities. The steering committee has set up a rapid response mechanism that
includes bill tracking, quick analysis, opposition research, and a sign-on letter.
4) NAPAWF has been invited to more than 20 White House events this year. Miriam Yeung
was one of only 11 leaders invited to a roundtable discussion on work-family balance with
Michelle Obama. As co-chair of the National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights
(NCIWR), NAPAWF coordinated the first ever meeting with the new Administration on
immigrant women and girls, and NAPAWF met with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and
White House staff members Tina Tchen, and Melody Barnes to discuss health care reform.
NAPAWF also joined with NLIRH and Black Women’s Health imperative to launch Women
of Color United for Health Care Reform, which organized a call with the White House that
drew 400 callers.
While NAPAWF chapters can still elect not to participate in the organization’s national
campaigns, 75 percent of chapters did participate in the national healthcare reform and HPV
vaccine campaigns this year by gathering signatures and writing op-eds for local newspapers.
2010 Plan:
In the coming year, NAPAWF has the following goals:
• The California Young Women’s Collaborative (CYWC), a NAPAWF project based at
California State University Fullerton, will engage 20 API students to produce and
disseminate original community-based research-to-action projects on the reproductive
and sexual health needs of API women and girls;
• Partner with Generations Ahead and Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice to
complete a toolkit for ally organizations outlining an RJ position on sex selection; and
• Finalize guidelines and agreements for all chapters, including agreements on data
collection, to enable to measurement of the scale and impact of NAPAWF’s work at the
chapter level.
NAPAWF’s stature at the federal level increased exponentially in 2009 and it is using its high
level of access to the new Administration to ensure that RJ is on the radar for key debates on
health care and immigration reform. While its chapter level work is growing at a far slower pace,
its increased communication with chapter leadership means that NAPAWF’s federal policy
platform is being shaped by its grassroots membership. The sex selection abortion ban
movement—propelled by anti-choice advocates—is quickly replacing the partial-birth abortion
ban movement and will need to be countered in the coming year.
NAPAWF has strong alliances with other RJ organizations. It is a SisterSong Management
Circle member, a co-convener of the National Immigrant Women’s Rights Coalition and the

National Health Nail Salon Alliance and a member of the LGBT rights coalition Partnership for
Family Inclusion. It is a campaign partner with Generations Ahead and ACRJ on combating sex
selection abortion bans, and a coalition partner with NLIRH, and the Black Women’s Health
Imperative on Women of Color United for Health Care Reform. Other close allies include the
Center for Reproductive Rights, the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project and NAPW, which
has represented NAPAWF on several amicus briefs.
NAPAWF is among the three strongest voices for RJ at the federal level and will be key to
winning upcoming fights on sex selection and immigration reform.

Organization: National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
(NLIRH)
City, State: New York, NY
Organizational Budget: $1,360,000
Other Funding Sources: Hewlett, Packard, Anonymous, Ford, Ms, Educational
Foundation of America, General Service, Noyes, Goldman,
Moriah, Prospect Hill
Founded in 1994, NLIRH is the only national Latina-led RJ organization representing a diverse
and growing Latina population. NLIRH’S goal is to ensure the fundamental human right to
reproductive health for Latinas, their families and communities through public education, policy
advocacy, and community mobilization. NLIRH focuses on three key programmatic areas:
protecting and expanding access to abortion and other RH services, eliminating RH disparities,
and advancing immigrant/Latina women’s rights. Its three major policy goals are:
• To restore public funding for abortion by overturning the Hyde Amendment.
• To lift the five-year bar , which blocks people from receiving federal, public benefits such
as Supplemental Security Income, food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families, State Children's Health Insurance Program, and non-emergency Medicaid
during the first five years after they secure qualified immigrant status.
• To prevent the marginalization of abortion and other reproductive health care services in
health care reform.
In addition, NLIRH seeks an end to coercive and punitive practices against pregnant and
parenting women in immigration detention centers.
Two programs advance NLIRH’s goals: the Policy and Advocacy Program supports Latinas’ RH
and rights through legislative action, public education, coalition building, and leadership
development, and the Community Mobilization Program (CMP) educates and develops leaders
to build regional networks of activists to inform and support NLIRH’s national policy agenda.
CMP’s key strategy is Latinas Organizing for Leadership and Advocacy (LOLA), which has
trained more than 170 individual leaders through modules such as Organizing 101, Building a
Latina Movement, and Starting an RJ Campaign. The LOLAs support eight Latina Advocacy
Networks (LAN), which bring together newly trained individuals and groups to advance
reproductive rights at the regional, state and national level. NLIRH supports active LANs in NY,
IL, NM, FL, MN, TX, D.C., and PA. Currently NLIRH is developing state policy advocacy plans in
TX, NY and MN. The newly launched Latina Advocacy Network Advisory Council (LANAC)
comprises two representatives from each LAN, and strengthens LOLA and LAN participation in
NLIRH’s work, improves communication across states, and continues leadership skill building.
NLIRH also has a database of approximately 2300 members nationwide who receive regular
updates and action advocacy alerts.

Highlights:
NLIRH:
• Is the single largest provider of bilingual resources and technical support to dozens of
Latina-led RJ organizations across the US and a leading RJ advocate for immigrant
women;
• Is one of four WOC-led RJ organizations working in Washington;
• Was instrumental in passing the NY State anti-shackling law for pregnant women who
are incarcerated.

NLIRH met its major 2008 objectives:
1) Convene 100 Promotoras in Texas for a training on RH/RJ advocacy at the request of
Migrant Health Promotion: NLIRH convened 100 Promotoras in the Rio Grande Valley in
December 2008 for an RJ training during which three training modules were tested; these
modules were subsequently launched as a new training series for NLIRH activists across
the country.
2) Partner with the National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights (NCIWR) to launch the
Liberation Campaign, centered on the impact of immigration raids on women and families,
with a focus on pre-natal services and the separation of women from their infants at
detention centers. Members had numerous meetings with Homeland Security personnel, co-
sponsored a Capitol Hill briefing on lack of RH services for women detainees, and
participated in the Presidential Transition Team Meeting on Immigration. NCIWR also signed
50 organizations to a letter demanding that the CD.C. reverse a US Citizenship and
Immigration Services’ decision to include the HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccine as a
mandate for immigrants seeking visas or permanent residence. The vaccine was criticized
as too new to be considered completely safe and prohibitively expensive. The CD.C. lifted
the mandate this November.
3) Strengthen the LANs with targeted technical assistance, site visits, and a third National LAN
Advocacy Weekend to strategize about campaigns, build relationships, and strengthen
advocacy/organizing skills. Twenty four activists from eight states and D.C. participated in
an April Advocacy weekend and 155 people participated in eight trainings. NLIRH published
two guides in English and Spanish to support leaders to plan an in-state advocacy day and
monitor state legislation. The MN LAN will conduct an in-state advocacy day this fall and
NLIRH will support in-state advocacy efforts of three LANs by the end of 2010.
4) Develop a communications plan to influence public opinion in support of its policy positions.
Partnering with Catholics for Choice, NLIRH launched Condoms4Life radio ads using the
message “Good Catholics Use Condoms.” The ads were picked up by popular Spanish
radio stations across NYC, but rejected as too controversial by Univision. NLIRH mobilized
its constituency to pressure the network and Univision finally agreed to air the ads. Camino,
a communications firm hired by NLIRH, estimates that in the first third of 2009 alone, the
organization reached a news audience of over eight million people; half of this coverage was
in newspapers and most appeared in D.C., NY and CA.
Healthcare reform has been a major focus for NLIRH in 2009. NLIRH was invited to the White
House on three occasions, most recently to talk with Secretary of Health and Human Services
Kathleen Sibelius about the needs of immigrant women. NLIRH’s goals are to: eliminate funding
restrictions on abortion, highlight the work of promotoras as critical providers, and ensure that
community health centers remain a part of the spectrum of care delivery options (see context for

status). NLIRH partners with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and with individual members
of Congress to address the needs of immigrant women. It also collaborates with National Asian
American Women’s Forum and Black Women’s Health Imperative on a WOC agenda for health
care reform; the three co-hosted a recent conference call with White House staff Tina Tchen
and Caya Lewis that attracted 400 callers from across the nation.
2010 Plan:
In 2010, NLIRH will continue to advance a national policy platform; policy advocacy in NY, MN
and TX; the development of Latina RJ leaders; and research and messaging on Latina
reproductive health. Core objectives are:
• To build momentum for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment.
• To expand a multi-media strategic communications plan (details below)
• To advance RJ for immigrant women; and
• To increase access to comprehensive family planning and reproductive health services.
With immigration reform predicted to move forward in 2010, NLIRH’s leadership will be critical to
ensuring that immigrant women and RJ are represented. NCIWR –co-founded by NLIRH in
2007– has grown from 19 to 46 member organizations. NLIRH will play a key role in shaping the
position this coalition takes on immigration reform.
NLIRH is unique among national RJ organizations because of the scale of its strategic
communications plan. Its prior work with Reproductive Health Technology Project developed
early RJ messaging for its constituency and revealed that Latinos ages 18-30 are more
supportive of abortion rights than their non-Latino counterparts, dispelling a longstanding myth
that Latinos are disproportionately pro-life. In 2010, NLIRH will work with Celinda Lake
Associates, a team of cognitive linguists and polling experts, and Camino Public Relations to
test and refine messages that resonate with various segments of the Latino community and to
strengthen relationships with media outlets.
NLIRH is in a strong position to advance its goals in 2010, cited by every Latina-led organization
on this docket as an important partner and resource that informs RJ messaging and policy work
at the local and state level. Many policy makers are now familiar with NLIRH and reach out to
the organization for data, language, and feedback on various projects and proposals. NLIRH
increased its capacity this year, moving to a larger office in NY, and hiring a seasoned
development and communications staff person and its first national field organizer.
NLIRH is in good shape financially, having raised 95 percent of its 2009 budget as of this
writing. Its budget increased from $818,000 to $1.4 million during the course of the year due to a
larger than anticipated carryover, the release of reserve funds to cover the cost of an office
move, and new grants from Ms. and the NY Department of Health. NLIRH has raised 83 percent
of its 2010 budget, which is projected at $1.36 million, and derived mostly (94 percent) from
foundation grants. NLIRH is building its grassroots fundraising capacity and raised $48,000 from
its ten-year anniversary celebration this year.
NLIRH is a growing force for RJ at the federal level and building great momentum for Latina
leadership in the movement.

Organization: Native American Community Board (NACB)
City, State: Lake Andes, SD
Organizational/Project Budget: $676,529/$384,284
Other Funding Sources: Ford, Public Welfare, Mars, Nathan Cummings,
John Merck
NACB was created in 1985 by Native Americans living on or near the Yankton Sioux
Reservation in South Dakota to protect and sustain the rights, sovereignty, Life Ways and
natural resources of indigenous peoples. NACB’s Native American Women’s Health Education
Resource Center houses a shelter for battered women, a clearinghouse of culturally-specific
women’s health education materials disseminated to tribes across North America, and several
initiatives, including the Indigenous Women’s Reproductive Justice Program (the Program), the
Violence Against Women program, and the Dakota language preservation program. NACB uses
internet streaming, a weekly show on Lakota talk radio, and print materials to communicate
locally and internationally.
The Program improves the health of low-income, reservation-based Native women across the
country by using community education, activist training, and federal advocacy to facilitate legal
access to abortion/pregnancy prevention and other reproductive health services. Native women
rely on Indian Health Services (IHS) for health care, but face tremendous barriers to accessing
the services to which they are legally entitled. For the past ten years, NACB has waged a
campaign to address the alarmingly high rates of sexual assault suffered by Native women and
girls. A Native woman who seeks care from IHS after a rape typically finds no Sexual Assault
Nurse Examiners (SANEs) on duty; no access to Emergency Contraception to prevent
pregnancy; no rape kits to collect evidence, no counseling, and no requirement that the
practitioner who examines her respond to a subpoena to testify in court. While legally entitled to
abortion care, she is unlikely be granted access; a 2006 NACB study of services provided
between 1973 and 2001 revealed that during that nearly 30-year period, IHS performed only 25
abortions nationwide; 85 percent of the 350+ IHS sites did not comply with the agency’s own
official abortion directive; and IHS staff were largely unaware of Native women’s rights regarding
abortions. As a result, Native women are left without the most basic reproductive health care
and unable to secure a conviction against assailants, the vast majority of whom are white men
who come onto reservations from surrounding towns.
The Program enables Native women to impact the federal policies affecting their daily lives and
is spearheading a national coalition of 25 Native women’s health and civil liberty organizations
to reduce the rate of assault and hold IHS accountable for providing quality care. One hundred
percent of NACB’s Board, 95 percent of its staff and constituency are Native American.
Highlights:
Over the last five years, NACB has:
• Played a leading role in IHS’s discontinuing the use of Norplant.
• Convinced the National Council of American Indians (NCAI) in 2003 to pass a resolution
supporting expansion of the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to include
federal support for sexual assault forensic exams and Sexual Response Team units to
serve tribes and villages. The expanded VAWA became law in 2005.

• Secured NCAI passage of a 2005 resolution supporting the development and
implementation of sexual assault and protocols for IHS emergency rooms and contract
healthcare providers, marking tribal leaders’ public support of NACB’s RJ platform.
• Published a landmark study in 2006 exposing IHS failure to provide comprehensive
reproductive health care to Native women.
• Secured $300 million in funding through the 2009 federal Omnibus Appropriations Act to
support tribal law enforcement and IHS to reduce the rate of sexual assault in Native
communities and to improve services for women who are assaulted.

NACB made good progress on all of its goals:
1) Campaign for adoption and implementation of NACB-recommended procedures and
protocols for IHS to use when treating survivors of sexual violence: NACB won a landmark
victory in March with passage of the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act (described in
highlights above). Testimony from NACB leaders, including many Native women who
testified before Congress for the first time, was critical to building momentum for inclusion of
these provisions. NACB will be working with IHS to help oversee the design and
implementation of these protocols nationwide.
2) Expand the coalition to include urban Native health and environmental organizations, along
with tribes from other regions. The coalition was expanded to include three environmental
and five urban Native health organizations, as well as three tribes from the NE and five
tribes from the SE.
3) Increase access to Plan B®. In January 2009, NACB released A Roundtable Report on the
Availability of Plan B® and EC within the IHS. Building on its 2008 survey, which revealed
very limited access to EC, this report features a roundtable discussion on survey results with
women from several tribes and outlines their recommendations. This report will launch a
2010 campaign to transform IHS delivery of EC.
4) Host two-day training for 60 Native youth activists (ages17-32) from every reservation in SD
to learn about domestic violence, sexual assault, tribal systems, and grassroots organizing.
Two trainings were held with a total of 48 youth participating from SD, ND, NB and IA.
2010 Plan:
In the coming year, NACB will:
• Launch a national campaign to force IHS to abide by its own protocol and provide
women with EC. Through a national media effort, the campaign will reach 100,000
Native Americans to demand addition of EC to the IHS's National Core Drug Formulary
and for a U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services directive and legislation that
mandates EC over the counter at every IHS service unit;
• Ensure IHS’s implementation of standardized emergency room policies and protocols for
sexual assault victims with trained SANEs; and
• Train 50 emerging activists as Native women’s RJ leaders.
NACB is the leading national voice on RJ for Native women. NACB’s catalytic work on sexual
assault is a striking example of an issue that would not have been visible, and a victory that
would not have been possible, without the leadership of Native women. Despite gains like
these, Native women have far to go to reach a level of RH access that most women in the US
would consider basic. NACB is well positioned to advance its objectives in the coming year. It

leads a national coalition of 25 tribal, health, environmental, and human rights organizations
working to end violence against Native women. Key members include NCAI, Tribal Law and
Policy Institute, National Abortion Federation, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for
Reproductive Rights, and the Indigenous Women’s Network. NACB has some connections to
the larger RJ movement, including loose associations with SisterSong, NLIRH, and ACRJ, and
stronger partnerships with Native-led groups such as Tewa Women United in New Mexico.
NACB’s major challenge will be stretching its limited staff capacity to take advantage of a host of
opportunities that have opened up under the new Administration. NACB has made some strides
to build youth leadership this year. It is working with seven youth interns who have designed
NACB radio programs for internet streaming. Ten interns representing nine different reservation
communities will work on the EC campaign in 2010.
NACB has raised 75 percent of its 2009 budget, which was increased from $584K to $692K this
May to support expansion of transitional housing and radio work. It has several grants pending
and is confident it will raise the remaining funds by year end. The project budget is $384,000,
down eight percent from 2008. While NACB has under-spent its budget in prior years due to
vacant positions, all staff positions are currently filled and it anticipates meeting its target for
expenses in 2009 and 2010. Thirteen percent of the organizational budget is derived from
government grants or contracts, 70 percent from foundation grants, 6 percent from individual
contributions; and 10 percent from earned income. Foundation income accounts for 100 percent
of the project budget.
NACB is a critical voice for Native women at the federal level and their work is improving RH
access for tens of thousands of Native women across the U.S.

Organization: Rebecca Project for Human Rights (RPHR)
City, State: Washington, D.C.
Other Funding Sources: Ford, Novo, Consumer Health, Moriah, General Service,
Jessie Smith Noyes
Founded in 2001, the Rebecca Project for Human Rights (RPHR) is a national legal and policy
organization that advocates for the human and reproductive rights of women and families in
recovery. RPHR challenges the aggressive sentencing of mothers who commit non-violent
crimes while suffering from addiction, and advocates for long-term family-based treatment
instead of prison time, so that mothers may remain with their children and heal together as a
family. Since 1986, the number of women in prison nationally has risen an alarming 400
percent; for black women, the figure is 800 percent. Most women in prison are women of color
and mothers, and most of them have been incarcerated for non-violent offenses and suffer from
substance abuse. Under current sentencing norms, mothers struggling with substance abuse
are more likely to be incarcerated than offered access to rehabilitation or treatment programs.
Only 37 percent of mothers in need of drug treatment with children under the age of 18 receive
any kind of treatment services. When incarcerated, mothers often lose their parental rights due
to child welfare laws that fast track their children into foster care or adoption. RPHR asserts that
the practice of imprisoning women for the disease of addiction reinforces an ugly pattern of
denying women of color the right to care for their children and keep their families intact.
Led by mothers in recovery, RPHR strives to create opportunities for their agency and
leadership at the local, state and national levels to change child welfare, criminal justice,
reproductive health and substance abuse policies. By amplifying the experience of families to
illustrate the larger national need for sensible substance abuse treatment policy and criminal
justice reform, the Rebecca Project bridges the gap between policymakers at all levels and the
real experiences of women and children.
RPHR is organized into 12 Sacred Authority (SA) parent-advocacy state chapters, led by
mothers in recovery who have interacted with the child welfare and criminal justice systems
during their addiction. Each chapter (AR, CA, FL, IA, IL, KY, OH, D.C., WI, MO, CT and GA)
includes an average of 18 mothers, approximately 80 percent of whom meet on a monthly basis
and participate in bi-weekly conference calls with national RPHR staff. Chapter leaders conduct
leadership and policy-training workshops at family-treatment centers, in jails and in
communities; participate in Congressional briefings and state legislative hearings on the
conditions of mothers in prisons and the impact of incarceration on children and families;
organize briefings with lawmakers; provide expert testimony; and coordinate site visits to enable
policymakers to see first-hand the benefits of family treatment programs and alternatives to
maternal incarceration. The state chapters are supported by RPHR staff, who alert local leaders
about upcoming advocacy opportunities, provide factsheets and policy papers outlining the
impact of the lack of family-based treatment and the increased incarceration of mothers for non-
violent drug felonies, and document the testimonies of mothers incarcerated for addiction
despite their requests for treatment. Additionally, RPHR works closely with 37 family-based
treatment programs across the US and with 25 women incarcerated in D.C..

Highlights:
Recent victories include:
• Won a ban on the practice of shackling pregnant women during labor and delivery in all
federal prisons and in state prisons in NY, TX, and NM;
• Secured $145 million in increased federal funding for family treatment centers;
• Repealed the Arkansas Garret’s Law (which forced women who test positive for drugs
during childbirth into prison) and opened up a new pathway to treatment and recovery;
and
• Helped pass the 2008 Second Chance Act, a major federal commitment to successful
prisoner re-entry.

The RPHR had several notable victories in 2008 and met or surpassed all of its goals:
1) Ending the shackling of mothers behind bars in state prisons, jails, and Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities: RPHR helped to pass statewide anti-
shackling policies for mothers during labor and delivery in NY, TX and NM. It joined the
Center for Reproductive Rights and Sistas on the Rise in a letter to newly appointed UN
Special Rapporteur on Torture requesting recognition of the US practice of shackling
mothers during labor and delivery as a form of torture. Eighteen RPHR advocates in five
states testified before the US Congress to support anti-shackling legislation for pregnant
women and alternatives to incarceration for non-violent women.
2) Expanding alternatives to maternal incarceration In 10 states, RPHR advocated for
alternatives to incarceration, with more than 300 leaders speaking out. For example, in
Chicago, women read testimonials, presented petitions to Gov. Pat Quinn, and testified at
hearings to expand family treatment centers and provide incarcerated parents with a 24
month grace period before their parental rights can be terminated. In MO, two RPHR
advocates testified before the Senate and House Appropriations Committees to increase
family treatment.
3) Developing and strengthening SA chapters and leadership trainings in key states: RPHR
conducted more than 20 leadership and advocacy workshops for 210 poor and vulnerable
women and trained 40 new national advocates who will in turn train other women in their
communities. The 25 participants in one Kentucky training included women in recovery,
service providers, probation and parole staff, Kentucky cabinet members, and a Supreme
Court justice who are now being engaged in work to improve Child and Family Services.
In addition, RPHR increased its federal advocacy under the new Administration, accepting four
invitations to the White House. RPHR Parent Advocates met with First Lady Michelle Obama to discuss
sexual violence against girls, White House Director of Public Liaison Tina Chen, Jennifer Yager
(Special Assistant to Melody Barnes, the President’s Domestic Policy Advisor), and Kavita Patel,
(Senior Policy Aide to Valerie Jarrett) to discuss the sexual violence-to-prison pipeline. They discussed
alternatives sentencing with Tino Cuellar of the White House Council on Women and Girls; expansion
of family treatment programs with Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President Domestic
Policy Council; and new language in TANF reauthorization that supports mothers with Martha Coven,
Office of Mobility and Opportunity. RPHR was also featured on National Public Radio.

2010 Plan:
In 2010, RPHR will continue work on its three main goals:
• End the shackling of mothers behind bars in state prisons, jails, and ICE detention
facilities;
• Expand alternative sentencing in order to end maternal incarceration; and
• Develop and strengthen Sacred Authority chapters and leadership trainings.
RPHR’s work is critical to the hundreds of thousands of women impacted by the drug policy,
criminal justice, immigration and child welfare systems. While there is now a ban on shackling at
the federal level, constraints continue to be used on women during labor and delivery in most
county jails, state prisons and immigration detention facilities. Only six states have statutes
regulating the use of restraints on pregnant women: CA, IL, NM, NY, TX, and VT. In 44 states,
and the District of Columbia, no such laws exist. RPHR is a leader in the campaigns to ban
shackling in all US jails and prisons. Its leadership will also be essential to taking advantage of
greater opportunities for alternative sentencing for mothers under the new Administration.
RPHR is strongly positioned to advance its goals in 2010. In addition to its leadership in national
and state anti-shackling coalitions, RPHR also partners closely with six allies, including the
ACLU, National Women’s Law Center, and Center for Reproductive Rights, to push for
expanded family treatment and alternative sentencing at the state level. A significant challenge
will be continuing to build diverse coalitions of Christian conservative, repro health and civil
rights organizations at the state level to end shackling.
RPHR is in good shape financially. At $792,000, its 2009 budget is up 20 percent from last year
and its 2010 budget is projected at $906, 000. A new, two-year grant from the Novo Foundation
supported this increase. The RPHR is also using a fundraising consultant to expand its
individual donor base in 2009 and 2010.
One of the few African American-led organizations on the docket, the RPHR is among the
strongest RJ groups in the nation. Its landmark victories have expanded the rights of thousands
of women and its continued leadership is key to implementation of past wins and to winning new
ground.

Organization: SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive
Health Collective
City, State: Atlanta, GA
Other Funding Sources: Ford, Tides/Hewlett, Cedar Tree, US Human Rights Fund,
Irving Harris, Moriah, Educational Foundation of America,
Brico, Mary Wohlford
The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective (SS) is the largest national
network of women of color organizations and individuals working for reproductive justice for
communities of color in the United States. Headquartered in Atlanta GA, SS was formed in 1997
by 16 women of color organizations and has grown to include 80 local, regional and national
grassroots organizations including the following populations: Native American/Indigenous,
Black/African American/Caribbean, Latina, Middle Eastern/North African, and Asian/Pacific
Islander, as well as individual women of color (WOC) affiliated with mainstream organizations,
and white and male allies. A major portal through which new individuals and organizations enter
the RJ movement, SS is governed by a Management Circle - a Board of Directors composed of
19 organizational and individual members representing all major U.S. racial groups. All positions
of leadership are held by women of color. SS’s programming currently includes:
• The RJ Training Program, which includes the RJ 101 training, an RJ 102 training on
implementing the RJ framework in local and regional organizing, and a Train the Trainer
program to equip participants to lead RJ 101 trainings;
• National Convenings, including annual membership meetings and national conferences
(held every three to five years) at which members and allies network, lead and
participate in trainings;
• Communications through Collective Voices, the only national publication written by and
for WOC on RJ, and the SS list serve, a weekly update on RJ and member news; and
• The Advocacy Program, which includes the Mapping Our Rights website, an interactive
tool that monitors the state of women’s rights, reproductive rights, and LGBT rights in
each state. In the coming year, this program will expand to include the publication of an
RJ and Sexual Rights Advocacy Agenda, and local organizing through an Atlanta-based
partnership with the Urban Institute for Reproductive Health.
In addition to its core programming, SS is involved in several partnerships, including the
National Coalition on Immigrant Women’s Rights, and a multi-year project funded by the Cedar
Tree Foundation to connect the RJ and environmental justice (EJ) movements through trainings
about the intersections of the work and to promote greater media visibility of this relationship.
Highlights:
SisterSong is:
• The largest network and convener of WOC-led RJ organizations in the United States;
• A portal through which new individuals and organizations enter the RJ Movement; and
• The only organization advancing a regional RJ strategy in the Southeast.

SisterSong met or exceeded its goals for 2009:
1) Conducted six RJ 101trainings, each with a minimum of 20 women representing five
different organizations and develop and implement one RJ 102 training. SS exceeded this
objective, conducting 65 trainings and presentations in 20 states with a total of 7,440
participants representing over 150 organizations. The training was also made available
through YouTube. The RJ 102 training debuted in July 2009, preparing 35 advocates to
move RJ ground campaigns and to conduct RJ 101 trainings.
2) Distributed two editions of Collective Voices and convene one annual national membership
meeting. Two editions of Collective Voices have been published. SS distributes 18,000 hard
copies of each edition. Approximately 300 people representing at 40 organizations attended
the 2009 meeting in Washington, D.C. this November.
3) Launched a Federal Policy Advocacy Program that includes the publication of a national RJ
and Sexual Rights Advocacy Agenda. Since January 2009, SS has met three times with the
Obama Administration, including key leaders Valerie Jarrett, Melody Barnes, and Tina
Tchen, to discuss strategies for repealing the Hyde Amendment, reducing teen pregnancy,
and advancing the Blueprint reproductive health priorities agenda presented to the Obama
Transition Team by 60 organizations earlier this year. Recommendations to begin lifting
Hyde’s restriction on women in the military, federal employees and D.C. were well received,
but have not had much traction amid the heated fight for healthcare reform. During the
meeting on teen pregnancy, SS advocated for integration of HIV/AIDS prevention into the
national dialogue on this issue. Through the Reproductive Justice Collaborative, SS and 11
other RJ organizations are producing a National Reproductive Justice Policy Agenda, slated
for completion in 2010. SS is also partnering with Raising Women’s Voices, a national
initiative to mobilize grassroots support for health care reform, and has co-hosted several
community forums in Atlanta.
4) Upgraded the Mapping Our Rights (MOR) website so users can track policies at the
intersection of RJ and other social justice movements and connect to each other locally and
regionally. MOR is still under construction. SS has secured a full-time AmeriCorp VISTA
staff person who began work this July to upgrade MOR’s web 2.0 capabilities, which will
enable users to host online meetings, blog, upload digital stories, and update local policy
changes on the site. A toolkit on how to use MOR as an advocacy tool is scheduled for
completion in 2010.
5) Launched Atlanta-based RJ organizing in partnership with the Urban Initiative. SS hosted
the Urban Initiative for Reproductive Health’s seven-city Southeastern regional summit in
Atlanta this October. One of four regional summits being held across the U.S. this year, it
was an important step for the South, where there is very little engagement between
advocates and decision-makers around RJ policies. Activists, providers and elected officials
convened from Louisville, Kentucky; Little Rock, Arkansas; Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill and
Asheville, North Carolina; Jackson, Mississippi; Miami, Florida; and New Orleans, Louisiana
to discuss solutions to high rates of infant and maternal mortality, and HIV infection and a
shortage of reproductive health services.

2010 Plan:
In 2010, SS will:
• Launch a Southern Reproductive Justice Network; equipping southern organizations to
train their constituents on RJ and supporting them to develop a joint policy campaign.
• Increase participation in federal policy debates by supporting member efforts to overturn
the Hyde Amendment and promote Medicaid Coverage for Family Planning.
• Conduct five RJ Trainings, each with 20 trainees representing five organizations and use
a new evaluation system to track impact.
• Complete upgrades to and a user toolkit for the Mapping Our Rights online tool and
complete a survey with users to assess impact.
SS has the largest membership base in the RJ community, and for years that base has
remained a huge untapped potential. Focusing on recruiting, training and convening, SS did not
centralize policy advocacy. At long last, SS is beginning to move its base into the policy arena,
creating a huge opportunity for greater impact and visibility. SisterSong could activate a rapid
response network, bringing the power of its national membership to bear on local, state and
national campaigns, creating the pressure needed for victories. The ground is particularly fertile
in the South, which is largely unorganized on RJ issues.
SS has raised its full 2009 budget and 26 percent of its 2010 budget, which is based on a 14
percent decrease in revenues as a result of the economic downturn and the loss of at least four
funders (the Moriah Fund, Educational Foundation of America, and Irving Harris, and Mary
Wohlford Foundations). As a result, SS will not convene a national membership meeting in
2010.

Organization: SPARK Reproductive Justice Now (SPARK)
City, State: Atlanta, GA
Other Funding Sources: Liberty Hill, Ms., Third Wave, Astraea, Noyes,
Community Foundation of Atlanta
SPARK is a statewide grassroots organization working with individuals, communities, and
organizations to sustain a powerful RJ movement in Georgia. With a base of 1200 individuals
and strong relationships with 20 social justice organizations, SPARK works to engage, mobilize,
and build the leadership of historically marginalized people and communities to secure RJ policy
change in Georgia and to support RJ efforts elsewhere in the South. It advances this through
public education, organizing, and direct action. SPARK’s diverse constituency includes a
significant number of LGBT youth of color, whose leadership SPARK supports through its youth
program. SPARK advances its mission through two programs:
• Speak Justice Take Action encompasses Legislate This!, an organizing and policy
project that responds to legislative threats to reproductive rights, and the Access Guide,
a free, comprehensive reproductive health information guide that also serves as a
political education tool for 12,500 Georgians.
• Youth and Reproductive Justice builds the organizing and advocacy skills of LGBT youth
of color and their allies in Atlanta and the South through leadership development,
political education and community organizing campaigns.
Highlights:
• Defeated a Personhood Amendment, a far-sweeping bill to protect life from fertilization
to natural death;
• Defeated the Teen Endangerment Act, which would have barred public health clinics
from distributing any information about healthy sex and sexuality to youth 18 and under;
• As a result of above, for the first time in three years, the Georgia legislature enacted no
anti-choice bills in 2008.

SPARK made some progress toward its 2009 objectives:
1) Ending shackling of incarcerated pregnant women in Georgia. SPARK worked with the
Rebecca Project to develop a strategy for anti-shackling legislation, began building
relationships with friendly legislators, and doing outreach to formerly incarcerated women to
participate in this campaign.
2) Launch a new program to build the engagement of youth. SPARK hired two new staff
positions to lead the Youth and Reproductive Justice (YRJ) program and assembled a
facilitation team of five queer youth of color who conducted a survey with 125 of their peers
on sex ed. Sixty youth attended the program launch event and 30 attended a follow up
political education session. YRJ was selected to participate in EMERJ’s Sex Ed! cohort.
3) Organize an annual Legislate This! Day of Action. Over 200 people (30 percent of whom
had not been to a SPARK event in the past) attended this state capitol event, keynoted by
Angela Davis.

4) Decriminalize the practice of midwifery by lay midwives and work to end violence against
women. This work was largely put on hold amidst leadership transitions (described below).
2010 Plan:
In the coming year, SPARK’s two programs will accomplish the following:
• Speak Justice Take Action: Introduce anti-shackling legislation; recruit and convene an
additional six members for the Legislate THIS! organizing CORE (currently at nine
members); mobilize 150 Georgians for a Third Annual Day of Action; maintain a weekly
presence at the Georgia state capital; and publish 3,000 copies of the Access Guide.
• Youth and Reproductive Justice: Solidify program structure (mission, vision, strategy),
publish 400 copies of a youth zine; engage five to eight youth in a summer political
education program, and participate in the EMERJ Sex Ed! cohort.
SPARK’s proposed policy focus in 2010 is an important one. Georgia is one of 44 states in
which incarcerated pregnant women are forced to give birth while restrained with wrist and leg
shackles. A victory in this campaign would make Georgia the first Southern state to ban the
practice. It is a compelling goal.
Originally founded in 1986 as Georgians for Choice (GFC), a single issue, pro-choice, legislative
advocacy-focused coalition, this organization was successful at fighting off several anti-choice
legislative attacks and increasing access to contraception. In 2005, a new co-directorship came
on board and shifted the organization to an RJ strategy. With a new focus on engaging
historically marginalized constituencies and a greater diversity of social justice sectors, SPARK
continued to defend choice but also tackled issues such as ending shackling of pregnant
women and violence against women. It recruited and mobilized a new group of leaders – largely
LGBT youth - and led a successful campaign to defeat a fetal personhood initiative in 2008. In
2009 SPARK has again demonstrated an ability to mobilize its base, turning out 200 people for
a lobby day keynoted by Angela Davis and 150 people for a rapid response vigil in response to
the murder of Dr. Tiller. Largely shunned by the mainstream reproductive rights movement -
which was invested in Georgians for Choice and did not react well to the new leadership of two
young, queer, women of color or to the strategic shift to RJ - SPARK forged new alliances with
people of color-led organizations working on economic justice, housing, environmental and
other issues, bringing them into RJ work.
SPARK has accomplished a great deal in recent years. It is one of the leading RJ organizations
in the South, and one of the few groups in this docket that is deliberately building the leadership
of LGBT communities on RJ issues.
SPARK’s projected 2010 budget is down 16 percent from this year. Fourteen percent of
SPARK’s budget is derived from grassroots fundraising – something it wants to increase in the
coming year - and the remainder is derived from foundations.
SPARK is a leading RJ organization in the South, a region that suffers incredible reproductive
injustices without an effective civil society infrastructure with which to fight back.

Organization: Western States Center (WSC)
City, State: Portland, OR
Organizational/Project Budget: $1,524,000/$307,000
Other Funding Sources: For GJP: Equity, General Service, Jessie Smith Noyes,
Ms., Overbrook and Pride foundations
Founded in 1987, WSC’s mission is to build a powerful movement for social, economic, racial,
and environmental justice in eight western states: OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, UT, NV and AK. WSC
works on three levels: strengthening grassroots organizing and community-based leadership;
building long-term, strategic alliances among community and progressive organizations; and
developing the capacity of informed communities to participate in the public policy process and
elections. WSC’s explicitly cross-movement programs, trainings and initiatives fall under four
broad, interrelated program areas: Leadership Development and Community Organizing; Civic
Participation and Political Power; Research and Action for Change and Equity (RACE); and
Gender Justice (GJP). WSC is infusing an RJ perspective into all of its work.
WSC’s Gender Justice Program (GJP) works to put progressive family values principles into
action by supporting organizations to develop a strong RJ political analysis and to mobilize their
bases to win critical public policy fights. It builds the capacity of immigrants and other women of
color, LGBTQ people of color, and low-income women’s groups to move a gender justice agenda
in the region by engaging in strategic local, regional and national movement building and
supporting the civic participation, voter engagement and policy advocacy work of groups across
the West. As part of the GJP, WSC developed an in-depth RJ curriculum: RJ 101, an overview of
the history of reproductive oppression focused on the policy and practices underpinning health
disparities and RJ Policies and Organizing, created with EMERJ to highlight what RJ campaigns
and policies can look like on the ground. As part of its work with a new five-state NW
Reproductive Justice Collaborative, WSC completed an RJ values statement that will ground all of
the collaborative’s work.
Highlights:
WSC and its constituent organizations can point to a long string of policy and organizing victories
in the gender justice/RJ arena. Among them:
• Defeating 12 anti-immigrant bills in the MT legislature in 2009
• Hosting 19 annual Community Training and Strategy Institutes in Portland, each
attended by hundreds of activists across the region - a chief power building mechanism
in the northwest.
• Launching, with EMERJ, Groundwork, an 18-month program for nine organizations
across the region whose aim is to build successful policy and civic engagement
campaigns rooted in RJ.
• Supporting literally scores of organizations in the West in their efforts to organize a
progressive base able to shape public policy and electoral outcomes at the local, state
and national level.

WSC has made consistent progress toward its goals, demonstrating a remarkable ability to
recalibrate strategy in order to achieve its long term goals:
1) Develop the capacity of immigrants and other women of color, LGBTQ, people of color, and
low-income women’s groups to move a gender justice agenda in the region, to increase
organizational stability and effectiveness, and to strengthen gender justice analysis and
organizing: Through its Uniting Communities Project, WSC is building connections between
mainstream LGBTQ organizations and organizations within immigrant/refugee and other
communities of color. This has been a long process requiring some changes in tactics, but
the work paid off when OR participants came together to support the state’s new Safe
Schools Act, which protects the rights and safety of LGBTQ youth. Immigrant and other
organizations took a first ever public stand in favor of this law. The new Groundwork
program (see above) will continue to manifest this goal; more than 20 groups applied for the
nine available slots.
2) Engage organizations in designing and implementing political education projects that
enhance the organization’s ability to take action on critical gender justice issues, including
policy fights. Through the Northwest RJ Collaborative, WSC is bringing allies in five states
together to develop shared communications, organizing, legal, and legislative and outreach
strategies to achieve RJ. Over the next year, this work will be linked to LGBTQ work in
organizations in communities of color.
3) Build cross-issue, cross-constituency analysis and relationships through peer networking
convenings. From CSTI to scores of smaller convenings, WSC consistently and effectively
convened its constituent organizations and leaders over the past year for training, strategy
development, relationship building and public events. WSC estimates that at least 107
organizations and more than 500 individuals participated regularly in its convenings and
training over the last year.
2010 Plan:
Over the next year, WSC will deepen the work the GJP has already begun:
• Expand the number of organizations willing to work on and advocate for RJ and LGBTQ
equality. This work will happen primarily through Groundwork and Uniting Communities.
Groundwork, a partnership with EMRJ, will run from September 2009-December 2010.
In January, Uniting Communities will release a toolkit for working on LGBTQ issues in
communities of color and test it through intensive work with four to six Oregon
organizations in communities of color.
• Advance the national RJ movement through extensive regional work. WSC will continue
to collaborate with EMERJ and the NW RJ Collaborative to build a unified movement
with shared values and definitions across the region that can win policy victories. This
work is closely tied to the Uniting Communities.
• Develop new leaders. To develop new RJ leaders, GJP will engage with WSC’s flagship
leadership development programs – CSTI and Western Institute for Organizing and
Leadership Development –to ensure that they have strong RJ/gender justice tracks and
build bonds between women’s groups , LGBTQ organizations and organizations in
immigrant and other communities of color.
• Build a strong electoral and civic participation component for this work by partnering with
WSC’s VOTE program, which supports voter registration, education, mobilization and
turn out across the region, with a particular focus on ballot measures.

WSC stands alone among multi-issue, multi-constituency progressive organizations in its
institutional commitment to gender justice and RJ. It is setting the pace for all other progressive
organizations, demonstrating how to integrate this commitment and analysis into every aspect of
organizing, advocacy and communications. This work is especially impressive because so much
of the region in which it works is still majority white and rural, proving that this work can and must
be done anywhere in the nation. WSC also collaborates well with other organizations and gets
high marks from its constituent organizations about the quality of its support and the respectful
manner in which that support is given.
WSC has managed to weather this year’s economic turmoil, in large part due to a onetime $3
million grant for the VOTE project. However, it has lost several mid-sized foundation sources even
as it builds stronger online communications and fundraising tools. In 2008, WSC spent about $2.7
million; in 2009, about $1.5 million, with the huge gap explained by extensive election year
funding and this year’s overall downturn. 2010 WSC projects a small increase to $1.64 million.
GJP’s budget is set for about $307,000 in 2010, up from about $243,000 in 2009.

Organization: West Virginia Focus: Reproductive Education and
Equality (WV FREE)
City, State: Charleston, WV
Other Funding Sources: Oak Hill, Ms., Advocates for Youth, Appalachian
Community Fund, National Institutes for Reproductive
Health, Dunn
WV FREE is West Virginia’s only advocacy organization committed solely to advancing
reproductive rights (RR) within a reproductive justice (RJ) framework, and is one of the few RJ
organizations working in Appalachia. Founded as an all-volunteer coalition in 1989, WV FREE is
now a statewide, membership-driven organization with 4,000 supporters (1,000 in its e-alert
system), and 100 members, who run for and elect WV FREE’s statewide board. Its mission is to
further and protect RR for all WV women—especially teens, rural and low-income women—by
preserving the right to abortion and increasing access to affordable RH information and care
including abortion, birth control and pre-natal care. WV FREE advances its goals and broadens
the base of support for RJ in West Virginia through grassroots organizing, policy advocacy,
media training, cross-movement alliance and coalition building.
WV FREE focuses on protecting access to abortion and emergency contraception (EC),
expanding access to family planning, and implementing comprehensive sex ed. WV FREE uses
civic engagement strategies to build public awareness and participation around RJ as a social
justice issue that resonates with the state’s strong civil rights history; and educates progressive
organizations and their members about the social justice dimensions of reproductive freedom.
Largely due to the advocacy of WV FREE and its partners, no anti-choice legislation has been
enacted in the past four state legislative sessions.
Highlights:
WV FREE has:
• Defeated an average of 50 anti-choice bills annually, and prevented any anti-choice
legislation from being passed in WV in the last four years.
• Advocated successfully to secure $1.4 million for WV Department of Health and Human
Resources Family Planning Program in 2007.

WV FREE made good progress on its objectives during the grant period:
1) Defeat a Medicaid bill that would prohibit state funding for abortions, and urge the state
apply for a waiver to enable its Medicaid program to provide family planning services: In
coalition with its allies, WV FREE defeated the Medicaid bill (which would have prevented a
public employee from obtaining abortion under her insurance plan, even for medical
reasons). Teaming with WV Perinatal Partnership and WV Center for Budget and Policy,
WV FREE is working with state legislative leaders to convince the governor to support the
Medicaid waiver. The Reproductive Health Technologies Project has supplied WV FREE
with technical assistance to develop materials that support this campaign.
2) Conduct an assessment of WV’s unintended teen pregnancies and disseminate the findings
in a white paper. Study on the Incidence of Teen Pregnancy and Childbearing in W. Virginia

was completed on schedule and leveraged to pass a bill authorizing a legislative research
project on the implementation of comprehensive sex ed in WV and its impact on minors
when insurance companies are not required to cover their access to birth control and
pregnancy care.
3) Solidify and expand a grassroots network of pro-RJ West Virginians. WV FREE partnered
with the ACLU and other allies to train 40 community members in grassroots lobbying, 16 of
whom participated in a lobby day at the capitol. WV FREE mobilized 60 people to a lobby
day and 50 people to a vigil for Dr. Tiller. It also forged stronger alliances with the LGBT and
African American communities by standing with Fairness WV on anti-discrimination
legislation that would add sexual orientation to a list of protected classes (this bill died in the
House), and with the NAACP on a bill to ensure funding for economic development in
neighborhoods of color (this bill was passed).
4) Increase the availability of reproductive services for West Virginians. WV FREE partnered
with Advocates for Youth to train 100 residents and medical students on EC, train 70
pharmacists on dissemination of EC in sessions that were approved for continuing
education credits, and distribute bulletin boards on contraception methods that are now on
display on three college campuses and other youth facilities. WV FREE disseminated 4,000
pamphlets on EC to rural and low-income communities.
2010 Plan:
In 2010, WV FREE plans to:
• Form a pro-choice, 501c4 PAC;
• Aid in the review process of two legislative studies on insurance coverage for dependent
children’s birth control (or lack thereof) and perinatal and sex education implementation
in schools statewide;
• Educate policy makers about the importance of comprehensive sex education, insurance
coverage of dependent children’s birth control (WV law currently excludes minor
dependents from contraceptive coverage), and the importance of retaining public funding
of abortion; and
• Move the state Department of Health and Human Services to expand the Medicaid
coverage waiver described above.
WV FREE is an RJ powerhouse that has held back a strong tide of anti-reproductive rights
measures in a conservative state. A public hearing on funding for abortion – which was
ultimately protected - illustrates WV FREE’s RJ approach at its best. Among those mobilized to
testify were a legal advocate from Center for Reproductive Rights, who flew in from D.C. to
provide expert testimony; a homeless advocate; an OB/GYN, a religious leader, survivors of
domestic violence, and other citizens. WV FREE outnumbered its opposition at the hearings
2:1.
After many years on the defensive, WV FREE has taken the offensive. The WV’s shifting
political terrain supports WV FREE’s new approach. Despite millions of dollars from a
conservative coal baron to attack pro-choice candidates in recent years, the results have been
undeniable: candidates can no longer be destroyed on the choice issue alone. While WV FREE
is still fighting a well-staffed anti-choice lobby—with deep pockets, chapters in every WV
country, and the power of fundamentalist churches behind it—the main pro-life group, WV for
Life, has been its own worst enemy. Its main lobbyist is extremely unpopular with state
legislators and was recently escorted out of a public hearing on abortion after pointing in the
face of a public official. Real threats remain; however, the Governor (while somewhat open to

the expansion of Medicaid to basic family planning services) and the Senate Judiciary Chair
have promised to pass legislation that eliminates Medicaid funding of abortion.
The issues WV FREE will be tackling in 2010 are critical to the lives of women in this state.
According to 2004 data, 175,200 West Virginia women need family planning services and
65,800 of them had incomes at or below 200 percent of poverty level. Many could receive family
planning services if the state obtained a federal Medicaid waiver to receive federal funds for
family planning. While the WV Family Planning Program wants the waiver, the governor does
not. This is why WV FREE has made him the focus of its organizing. Sex ed and contraception
access for youth are also critical areas of need and, with strong partnerships with Advocates for
Youth and local allies, WV FREE is well positioned to advance them.
WV FREE is partnering with more organizations than ever before, including 33 state/regional-
level organizations and 11 national ones. Key allies include the ACLU, Medical Students for
Choice, WV Environmental Council, Advocates for Youth, SisterSong, Guttmacher, National
Network of Abortion funds, Reproductive Health Technologies Project and the Center for
Reproductive Rights.
WV FREE’s infrastructure expanded this year. A new office manager position now supports
database management, event coordination and book keeping. Staff and board leadership was
strong enough to enable Executive Director Margaret Chapman to take a three month
sabbatical. However, a Development Coordinator is greatly needed to free Chapman to work on
strategy and alliance building. While WV FREE’s Board is diverse in terms of age, gender,
religion, and sexual orientation (two-thirds are LGBT) there are no people of color on the staff or
board. The newly formed board of WV FREE’s pro-choice PAC is led by a Latina. People of
color comprise only three percent WV’s population. WV FREE has raised 47 percent of its 2009
budget. They anticipate meeting their budget through likely year-end renewals from
longstanding funders Noyes, Oak Hill, and Tides, and a sub-grant from Advocates for Youth.
WV FREE’s projected budget for 2010 is 1% higher than its current 2009 budget. WV FREE will
continue to host three grassroots fundraising events and one direct mail appeal annually. A first-
time audit in 2009 has helped streamline financial systems.
WV FREE’s work to support extremely low-income women living in rural areas is critically
important, as is the model it provides for advancing RJ in a conservative state.

Organization: Young Women United (YWU)
City, State: Albuquerque, NM
Other Funding Sources: Hispanics in Philanthropy, Jessie Smith Noyes,
Ms. Foundation, New Mexico Community Foundation,
Third Wave Foundation, Santa Fe Community Foundation
Founded in 2000, YWU is a New Mexico organization created by and for young women of color
and their allies. Through YWU, young women develop leadership skills, support each other,
gain political awareness, educate their communities, connect local concerns with national social
justice efforts, and build power to organize around important issues facing their communities.
Currently, NM has the third highest teen pregnancy rate in the US, contributing to its high school
dropout rate. Challenging the invisibility of young women of color and Indigenous/Native women
in the community, civic and political arenas in NM and the nation, YWU believes that problems
can be solved only when those most impacted lead the fight. Its organizing model places youth
at the center of all the decisions made, research conducted and actions taken.
YWU’s work is organized around two programs: Circle of Strength (COS), a youth-led, multi-
issue organizing and leadership development program for women ages 13–19 (currently 13
core members); and Circle of Fire (COF), a multi-issue organizing project for women ages 19–
35 (currently 26 core members). The circles come together throughout the year to hold events,
conduct retreats, and strategize. YWU provides trainings for the circles including leadership
development, organizing, campaign development, public speaking, political education, media
literacy, and analysis of the impact that racism, sexism and violence has on body image and
sexual health.
Highlights:
YWU recent victories include:
• Moved the Albuquerque Public School (APS) Board to adopt comprehensive sex ed in
2005.
• As part of the New Mexicans for Responsible Sexuality Education, won comprehensive
sex ed in all NM public schools in 2005.
• Helped create and implement health standards and benchmarks released by New
Mexico Public Education Department in 2006.
• Successfully pressured state policymakers so that NM became the fifteenth state to
refuse abstinence only federal funding in 2007.

YWU has made significant progress toward its goals:
1) Oversee implementation of the APS plan for sexuality education for grades K-12: To monitor
the adoption of new sex-ed standards, COS conducted over 500 peer surveys, creating sex-
ed report cards from 11 APS high schools. The results were revealed in a press conference
that included 45 community members and local television and newspapers:
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s808663.shtml. Media pressure gave YWU greater
access and leverage with schools and health educators and created a platform from which

to discuss the importance of curriculum and language that does not stigmatize young
parents of color and that includes their perspectives. To date, YWU has met with all APS
high schools and the majority have committed to working together to shift the language used
in school curriculum. YWU continues to build stronger relationships with the school board
and coalition partners (New Mexico Teen Pregnancy Coalition, NM Planned Parenthood,
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Kalpulli Izkalli, Somos Un Pueblo Unido, etc.) in
efforts to work together to best meet the state standards and benchmarks.
2) Build a strong foundation for the Anti-Violence Against Women Campaign: On February 11,
2009 a mass grave of 11 women with histories of being assaulted and drug abuse was
found on the west mesa of Albuquerque. YWU and Kalpulli Izkalli, a community partner,
sponsored a vigil to protest media and government portrayal of these women as prostitutes
and drug addicts rather than mothers, daughters and sisters in the community:
http://www.koat.com/news/19096537/detail.html. More than 200 community members came
out the first night, with local media in attendance. Since then, monthly vigils have given
families and loved ones a voice to understand the connection between child sexual abuse,
substance abuse and the incarceration of women. YWU also worked with Senator Linda
Lopez and Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish, who publicly came out against the treatment
of these women, radically shifting the language of media coverage to stress the humanity of
the murdered women. Consequently YWU, in collaboration with NM Drug Policy Alliance
and Kalpulli Izkalli, was able to draft and influence the enactment of state legislation
honoring the victims and their families. YWU’s success in redefining the issue to the need
for treatment and rehabilitation resulted in new addiction-sensitive jail release policies,
prohibiting late night releases without access to phone or transportation that were
implemented promptly by Albuquerque’s Metropolitan Detention Center.
3) Engage 20 women of color in an environmental and reproductive justice apprenticeship
program to increase knowledge and build leadership among women of color to advance the
environmental and reproductive justice movements: In partnership, YWU and Kalpulli Izkalli
have trained 15 of the 20 young women of color in the promotora apprenticeship program to
engage work across EJ and RJ. Promotoras engaged in traditional healing practices with
families of murdered women and provided spiritual guidance at the monthly vigils that
fostered community trust.
This year YWU took a leadership role in organizing and convening a cohort of nine Catalyst
grantees of the New Mexico Community Foundation in efforts to deepen alliances and increase
coordination among RJ groups in NM. YWU designed training curriculum and programming for
these cross sector organizations to develop an RJ framework focused on increased
engagement on policy change efforts. This partnership reflects YWU’s organizational maturation
and its role as a recognized RJ leader in New Mexico and the nation.
2010 Plan:
In 2010, YWU plans to:
• Build partnerships with local schools to insure that APS develops a strong plan for
responsible sex ed that includes community input, is well monitored, and offers training,
resources and support for school districts to implement the policies enacted by the end
of 2010.
• Build the RJ framework and youth movement in NM to leverage the collective power of
young women of color to shape policy and program around responsible sexuality
education rather than teen pregnancy prevention.
• Increase access to quality treatment for women addicted to substances and/or survivors
of sexual violence under state jurisdiction.

YWU has been highly visible this year, gaining increased credibility among decision makers and
creating more opportunities to shape policies that affect women of color in NM. As one of the
only organizations bringing youth to the table, YWU’s policy wins are the result of a deep
commitment to and support from the community. In addition to increasing its base in the
community and its ability to impact policy this year, YWU’s RJ cross-issue work has expanded
to include the impacts of drug and prison policies on women of color. More than half of COS’s
current membership has been active for five years or more and YWU’s commitment to
advancing sexuality education and development of youth of color leadership in the RJ
movement has impressed peers and adult allies throughout the field. YWU’s work has put NM
on the map as a leader in the fight for comprehensive sexuality education and its victories have
brought extensive public attention, which has translated into new members and partners. YWU
is well-integrated into the broader RJ movement nationally and has strong ties and partnerships
with Sistas on the Rise, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Planned Parenthood
of NM, the Albuquerque Rape Crisis Center, SisterSong, INCITE!, COLOR and SPARK, among
others.
With a capacity building grant from Hispanics in Philanthropy, and technical assistance from
Movement Strategy Center (a progressive capacity building organization), YWU has launched a
new structure and staff supervision model this year to strengthen its internal administration and
communication capacity.
Due to the recession, YWU’s 2009 budget decreased to $182,500 from $295,000 in 2008. As
several funders have warned of additional cutbacks this year, YWU has hired a grant writer to
target new funders for its planned 2010 budget of $209,510. YWU currently has $65,000
secured and $82,000 anticipated of its 2010 budget along with seven pending proposals and 10
LOI submissions to new foundations. Over 90 percent of its funding continues to come from
foundations, as YWU’s grassroots fundraising efforts did not generate significant amounts last
year. Nevertheless, grassroots fundraising may have more promising results due to YWU’s
strong organizing efforts that have increased its community base of support. Despite the
challenging economic climate, YWU continues to search for strategies that tighten and
maximize its budget.
One of the strongest grassroots organizations on the docket, elevating the voices of youth of
color while simultaneously developing strong partnerships at state and national levels, YWU is
poised to continue empowering women of color and achieving policy gains.

Fall 2009 Docket
Glossary
Term/Acronym Definition
Amicus Brief Information/testimony on a point of law or some other aspect
of the case to assist the court in deciding a matter
Cafecitos Informal Meetings
CDC Centers for Disease Control
Colonias Unincorporated Settlements
CPS Child Protective Services
EC Emergency Contraception
FY Fiscal Year
HPV Human Papilloma Virus
PAC Political Action Committee
Promotoras Community-based health educators
RH Reproductive Health
RJ Reproductive Justice
RR Reproductive Rights
STI Sexually Transmitted Infection
TA Technical Assistance
WOC Women of Color
Zine Small circulation/publication of original text

Health Reform Imperatives for Women and Communities of Color

"And if we want to achieve true equality for women, if that is our goal; if we want to ensure that women
have opportunities that they deserve, if that is our goal; if we want women to be able to care for their
families and pursue things that they could never imagine, then we have to reform the system. We have to
reform the system. The status quo is unacceptable. It is holding women and families back, and we know
it."
– First Lady Michelle Obama, September 18, 2009

Congress must act now to reform our nation’s health care system, which is drastically underserving
women and communities of color. By 2042, people of color are expected to comprise the majority of
the U.S. population. Today, people of color make up more than 30% of the U.S. workforce, even though
they are only about 26% of the U.S. population. Women of color, in particular, make up a critical force
in our economy. Companies owned by women of color were the fast‐growing group among all
companies from 2002 to 2008. The future of our nation hinges on the health and well‐being of women
of color.

Yet today’s broken health care system denies millions of women of color the ability to live healthy lives
and renders them unable to participate fully in social, civic, and political affairs in their communities
and – more importantly – in the lives of their families. More than one‐third of the 45 million
Americans who lack health insurance are women of color. They live in underserved and under‐
resourced communities, lack appropriate access to primary health care, and endure more chronic
illnesses and disease that go undiagnosed or undertreated, resulting in shortened lives and avoidable
deaths.

Nearly four out of every 10 Latinas (38%) and nearly one in four Black (23%) and Asian and Pacific
Islander women (24%) lack health insurance coverage. Many women of color who have coverage are
under‐insured, or face cultural and/or linguistic barriers to accessing quality care.

Access to quality, affordable health care for all people who live in the United States is absolutely
essential. We cannot allow politics or partisanship to block the effort to reform health care. As
women of color, we support passage of a health care reform bill that ensures access to high‐quality,
affordable, and easily accessible comprehensive health care for all that:

1. Ensures that everyone in the U.S. receives equal access to health coverage. Increasing
access to affordable health care is essential to ensuring that all women receive the preventative
and medical care they need to lead healthy and productive lives. A fair and equal reform bill
would provide everyone – including immigrants – with the opportunity to pay into and benefit
from the health care system.

2. Ensures that health coverage is available over the course of one’s lifespan. Women
frequently encounter disruptions in care because of divorce, the death of a partner, or job
transitions. Such life changes should not impact a person’s ability to access the health care
system.

3. Guarantees voluntary access to preventative care. Accessing preventative care both
controls costs and allows women to live healthier, more productive lives. Patients should be
made aware of preventative care options that have been shown to strengthen health outcomes,
like smoking cessation programs, fitness programs, and routine diagnostic tests.

4. Expands public programs such as Medicaid and CHIP. Medicaid and CHIP compromise a
vital safety net, providing health care to the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable. Medicaid
and CHIP were specifically designed for low‐income populations and include benefits – like
preventative care and non‐emergency transportation – that are often not covered by private
insurers.

5. Establishes a public option to provide competition, ensure lower costs, and
accountability for insurance companies. Low‐ and moderate‐income individuals and small
businesses need access to the quality, cost‐contained care that the public health insurance
option would offer. Health reform should include a public plan or similar mechanism that will
ensure greater competition in a market where costs have been sky‐rocketing at twice the rate
of wages.

6. Guarantees affordability by eliminating discrimination based on health status and
gender. No individual should be disqualified from accessing coverage based on a pre‐existing
condition.

7. Invests in communitybased health services that promote health equity. Women of color
need comprehensive health care services that span a woman's lifetime and address her
physical, mental, dental, reproductive, and sexual health care needs in a culturally appropriate
way. Investments in safety net institutions and programs, community health centers, and
community revitalization efforts are all integral parts of transforming underserved
communities into healthy places for families to live and work.

8. Ensures vulnerable and underserved communities have access to equitable and
linguistically and culturally appropriate care, with particular attention to the
reproductive health needs of women and girls. Language barriers can reduce access to
health care, jeopardize the quality of care, and increase the risk of medical errors.

9. Adopts quality improvement programs that address the health care challenges and
needs of underserved communities. Because underserved communities and populations are
typically sicker and face greater barriers to treatment compliance, performance measurements
can inadvertently dampen provider enthusiasm for treating low‐income and minority
communities and populations. Quality improvement efforts should take into account the
challenges and needs of underserved communities and populations and reward efforts that
reduce disparities and improve patient outcomes.

10. Develops standardized measures for collecting, monitoring, and reporting data on
health disparities. In order to better meet the needs of women of color, any reform package
should include a strategy for developing appropriate standardized measures, indicators, and
methods for collecting and reporting data to learn more about health care access, quality and
outcomes by patient demographic factors, including race and ethnicity, age, gender, primary
language, socio‐economic position, geographic location, and health literacy.

For more information or for ways to get involved,
please contact Emily Napalo at enapalo@rabengroup.com or (202) 587‐2869.

Tides Reproductive Justice (RJ) Fund Docket - Fall 2009

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Tides Reproductive Justice Fund

Fall 2009 Docket (Public)

Vanessa Daniel, Philanthropic Advisor

Tides Reproductive Justice Fund - Fall 2009 Docket (Public)

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under‐insured, or face cultural and/or linguistic barriers to accessing quality care. National Asian

Organization Location National Regional State Local

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TIDES RJF FUNDING PRIORITIES

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Organization Budget '09 Budget '10 Granted 2009

Alaska Community Action on Toxics $958,000 $908,000 $45,000

Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice $867,173 $1,065,452 $62,500

CA Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative $110,000 $115,000 $20,000

CA Latinas for Reproductive Justice $492,218 $687,609 $40,000

Choice USA $929,710 $938,861 $30,000

COLOR $276,150 $400,000 $30,000

Faith Aloud $287,777 $165,500 $20,000

Generations Ahead $671,000 $464,000 $40,000

Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health $1,054,235 $807,975 $25,000

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children $1,055,570 $1,118,281 $30,000

Migrant Health Promotion $1,716,657 $2,050,401 $30,000

National Advocates for Pregnant Women $889,828 $924,000 $40,000

National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum $817,500 $529,146 $30,000

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health $818,060 $1,360,000 $35,000

Native American Community Board $692,901 $676,529 $40,000

Rebecca Project for Human Rights $615,000 $906,000 $62,500

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health $785,505 $665,241 $30,000

SPARK (formerly Georgians for Choice) $190,000 $226,340 $25,000

Western States Center $1,510,000 $1,524,000 $35,000

West Virginia Focus: Reproductive Education and Equality

Young Women United $295,000 $209,510 $35,000

*All Applicants are seeking a renewal grant

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Alaska Community Action on Toxics

Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice

California Healthy Nail Salons Collaborative

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Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children

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National Advocates for Pregnant Women

National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

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Rebecca Project for Human Rights

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health

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Western States Center

West Virginia Focus: Reproductive Education

Young Women United

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