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Media Contact:
Vanessa Daniel
Tides Foundation
415-561-6302
vdaniel(at)tides.org
San Francisco, CA - February 23, 2009 - Tides is pleased to announce that its Reproductive Justice Initiative granted more than $3 million in 2008 to support the U.S. reproductive justice movement. The initiative provides grants to grassroots organizing and advocacy efforts led by and for women from communities that experience disproportionately high reproductive health disparities and constraints. These are communities that have the greatest reproductive health needs, are leading many of the most effective efforts to expand reproductive freedom, but have historically received the least amount of funding. The initiative’s two component funds – The Catalyst Fund and the Reproductive Justice Fund – made grants to 36 organizations in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Currently in its sixth year of grantmaking, the Reproductive Justice Initiative has to date awarded $7.5 million to nearly 60 organizations.
The Catalyst Fund at Tides moved more than $1.4 million to women of color-led organizations and projects in eight communities across the nation in 2008. The Catalyst Fund was created to increase resources to women of color-led reproductive justice efforts. Funds raised from national funding partners are awarded as dollar for dollar challenge grants to women’s funds and community foundations, effectively doubling the resources that ultimately reach women of color-led organizations and increasing contributions from new donors to the reproductive justice movement.
“Women in the U.S. now face the best opportunity in history to advance reproductive freedom, and a strong multiracial movement is imperative to taking full advantage of this opportunity,” said Vanessa Daniel, Philanthropic Advisor, Tides Foundation. ”The Catalyst Fund gives funders an opportunity to reverse the persistent shortage of funding to women of color-led reproductive justice work, in support of a stronger, more united and effective movement for reproductive freedom.”
In 2008, the Tides Reproductive Justice Fund, a collaborative of individual and institutional donors, awarded $1.65 million to 26 organizations led by historically underrepresented women, including women of color, low-income, young, rural, immigrant women, and LGBT people Reproductive Justice Fund grantees have been essential to many of the most important reproductive rights victories of the past decade, including: defeating parental notification laws in California and a fetal rights ballot initiative in Colorado; ending the federal prison shackling of pregnant women during childbirth; and pressuring major cosmetics companies to remove reproductive toxins from their products. Reproductive Justice Fund grantees are broadening the base of support for reproductive rights and justice by building new alliances with labor, environmental, and other progressive movements.
Tides has a deep commitment to women’s rights and reproductive justice and a total $9.6 million went to those activities in 2008. This includes $3 million from the Tides Reproductive Justice Initiative and an additional $6.6 million in grantmaking from individual and institutional donors at Tides. Tides awarded over $108 million in grants in 2008, making it the largest year in its 33 year history and topping the previous year by more than $15 million.
* Grants to Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, ChoiceUSA and SisterSong were done in partnership with Tides Reproductive Justice Fund donors and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation.
About Tides
The Tides mission is to partner with philanthropists, foundations, activists and organizations across the country and around the globe to promote economic justice, robust democratic processes, and the opportunity to live in a healthy and sustainable environment where human rights are preserved and protected. Tides is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 that provides an array of services to amplify the efforts of forward-thinking individuals and organizations to make the world a better place. With offices in San Francisco and New York City, Tides provides fiscal sponsorship for over 200 groups across the country, operates and supports green nonprofit centers and granted $108 million in 2008 alone. For more information, visit www.tides.org.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Christine Coleman
ccoleman(at)tides.org
415-561-6354
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