Every Mother Counts
/OVERVIEW: Every Mother Counts supports safe pregnancy and childbirth, birth justice, and access to quality maternal healthcare in the U.S. and abroad.
IP TAKE: Every Mother Counts prioritizes local and grassroots groups over large international organizations. It only makes grants to organizations that have an annual operating budget of less than $1 million USD and are registered 501(c)3 or country equivalent, or able to comply with U.S. financial expenditure requirements for public charities. Grantseeking organizations must have “diverse funding streams and transparent accounting systems” and be able to provide “2 funder references and 3 years of financial reports.”
EMC restricts awards to countries it is currently funding (Bangladesh, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Tanzania, and the United States). Grants for organizations serving U.S.-based organizations prioritize decolonizing birth and delivering birth justice to low-income and at-risk women. U.S.-based work, in particular, addresses grants for racial and indigenous justice through birth justice work; however, all of EMC’s work tends to have a focus on justice at some level.
Unfortunately, EMC's website does not offer information regarding how grant seekers may secure funding. Its latest tax filings also do not indicate whether or not it accepts grant applications or proposals. Given this lack of information, it is likely that EMC takes a proactive approach towards its grantmaking by seeking organizations with which it wants to work. But EMC considers inquiries, so email them to see if your work aligns with theirs and to get on their funding radar.
Grants are for one year; however, many grantees have received multi-year grants, so this is a more crowded giving space, but excellent for smaller and modest-sized organizations.
PROFILE: Established in 2010, Every Mother Counts (EMC) is a nonprofit organization founded by model and social entrepreneur Christy Turlington Burns. The foundation envisions “a world where all women have the opportunity to enter motherhood and not only survive, but thrive.” Having herself suffered childbirth complications, Turlington Burns created EMC to bring increased awareness to global maternal health matters, and has so far invested $16.2 million dollars in advocacy and awareness programs, but it also makes grants to support like-minded organizations operating in the U.S. and abroad.
Grants for Women and Girls, Global Health, and Mental Health
The entirety of Every Mother Count’s grantmaking is conducted through a gender lens focus. With grants focused on maternal health, EMC is dedicated to women and girls’ global and mental health. Across its grantmaking, it funds all aspects of providing a respectful and safe birth without judgment. The foundation funds doula services, midwifery, mobile birthing shelters, basic medical supplies, training services, and much more, so long as requests for funding work to ensure safe and respectful maternal and infant care. Each country of grantmaking priority features its own areas of giving interest and must be read thoroughly to see if your project aligns with the foundation’s mission.
Mental health grantees center on preventing and treating postpartum depression, birth trauma, and healthy infant-mother attachment both during peace-time in the EMC’s geographic target areas and during disasters or humanitarian crises, through its regular giving, as well as its EMC Maternal and Child Health Emergency Fund.
Grants for Disaster and Humanitarian Relief; and Refugees
Every Mother Count’s makes emergency response grants for organizations serving expectant women and girls in areas that have suffered natural disasters or humanitarian crises through its EMC Maternal and Child Health Emergency Fund. Like the rest of its grantmaking, the Fund only supports organizations whose work benefits or is based in the countries that EMC is currently serving. For now, these countries include Bangladesh, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Tanzania, and the United States. To receive funding, projects must address community-based work that works to fill in the gaps in care and services when health systems break down under duress and can cause an increase in maternal deaths. Grant seekers addressing grants for refugees can also secure a grant from EMC through this particular fund. Emergency grants in this space can address building temporary, portable birthing shelters; even toxic mold issues in the case of hurricanes; providing basic needs for a safe birth; midwifery; c-section equipment; and safe family planning efforts, among several other areas of giving related to providing access to safe and respectful maternal care.
Disaster and humanitarian tend to range between $10,000 and about $50,000, but can vary in either direction. Past disaster and humanitarian relief grantees include Bumi Sehat; Circle of Health International, to serve Hurricane Harvey expectant mothers in Texas; and HOPE Foundation for Women & Children of Bangladesh, which served the needs of over 500,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Important Grant Details:
Grants across the foundation tend to be modest and range from about $5,000 to $50,000; however, EMC’s partners have received $250,000 or more over the course of several years. Explore EMC’s past grantee’s further here.
Every Mother Counts makes grants twice a year based on winter and fall giving cycles. It issues invitations to programs to submit proposals in November, which are then due by February 1st (disbursed by March 31st) or August 1st (disbursed by September 30th). Grant seekers can contact the EMC directly online with general inquiries and questions.
The foundation does not appear to accept unsolicited grants, but it does not clarify this point. Grant seekers should reach out to EMC staff and introduce themselves.
PEOPLE:
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