"It’s Been a Windfall For Us." Donors Rush Funding to Protect Texans’ Access to Abortion

A protestor outside the Supreme Court.

Anti-choice forces, conservative state legislators and a U.S. Supreme Court stacked by Republicans combined to enact a near total ban on abortion in Texas last week, setting an extreme precedent that could soon spread to other states and have a devastating impact on primarily low- and middle-income people.

It’s a heart-wrenching blow for those funding and fighting on the ground for reproductive health and justice in the United States, but both donors and Texas nonprofits say that, at least for now, money is definitely moving to meet the moment. The surge in giving reflects the significant role nonprofits and private donations have come to play in protecting abortion access as states further restrict access. 

The law seems to have been an eye-opener to many donors who have been shocked and enraged at how vulnerable reproductive rights have become. There’s also some evidence that institutional funders are increasingly aware that the attack on abortion rights isn’t a siloed issue, or one that is limited to a single red state passing a rogue law, but part of a broad range of attacks on democracy and racial and gender equity. 

A wave of donations 

After SCOTUS, in the dead of night, refused to grant an emergency request to block Texas’ extreme abortion ban SB8, entities including public officials, celebrities, corporations, news organizations and the general public have broadcast a single, simple message: send money, and send it now, to organizations supporting abortion rights and access in Texas. While advocates may be quietly wishing the outpouring of support had occurred long before the ban went into effect, the breadth of the response has been remarkable. 

Singer-songwriters Lucy Dacus and Jack Antonoff pledged to send the proceeds from their upcoming Texas concert tours to the state’s abortion funds, which help people arrange the very complex finances and logistics involved in securing care in Texas. The Dallas Art Fair, after backing away from a 100% commitment, has likewise pledged at least $50,000 in proceeds from its planned November event to Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas. 

Bustle, Autostraddle, Mashable, Salon and New York magazine’s The Strategist were among the news outlets that published lists and directed links to Texas abortion funds and other pro-choice and reproductive justice organizations in the state. (Blue Tent, Inside Philanthropy’s sibling publication, will publish a list of lesser-known organizations in and beyond Texas later this week, which we’ll link to here.)

Lyft and Uber—companies more commonly under fire over their treatment of drivers—pledged to cover legal fees for any driver sued for knowingly, or even unknowingly, taking a pregnant person in Texas to have an abortion. In addition to banning any abortion after just six weeks into a pregnancy—which is before many people even become aware they are pregnant and not long after even missing their period—one of the law’s most sinister caveats allows anyone in the state who does not work for the government to sue abortion providers or others who helped someone access such a procedure. 

Web hosting site GoDaddy announced it had taken down an anti-choice website that encouraged vigilantes to finger individuals and organizations assisting people faced with unwanted pregnancies. 

The companies behind the dating sites Match and Bumble also made a commitment. Match, which is based in Texas, has set up a fund to allow its employees to get out of Texas for care, and Bumble said it would launch a fund of its own to support people trying to access services in the state. By doing so, both companies potentially painted targets on their backs for people seeking to score the $10,000 bounty plaintiffs can claim under the law.

On the crowdfunding front, Act Blue made it easy for those concerned about abortion access to make one donation spread across 10 of Texas’ abortion funds. Indeed, the overwhelming focus on supporting local abortion funds, as opposed to the large NGOs that often benefit from such surges in donations, has been a unique hallmark of the response to the law. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff spread the word about the Act Blue link to his mailing list, while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reported that her supporters raised more than $185,000 for Texas groups in 24 hours ending the Friday before the holiday weekend. 

Calls for funding are definitely being heeded. On Friday, MarketWatch reported that one Texas fund, the Texas Equal Access (TEA) Fund, had raised “at least $200,000” in roughly 36 hours after the court ruling. Representatives of organizations supporting abortion access and abortion rights in Texas to whom I spoke reported similar results. 

“There’s definitely been a lot more attention paid to [Clinic Access Support Network, or CASN] than we’ve ever seen before,” board member Bridget Schilling said. “We have had an influx of donations coming in from individual donors that we had not anticipated.”

“It’s been quite a windfall,” said Starr Britt, director of development with The Afiya Center, who reported her organization has received thousands of donations, including individual gifts in excess of $10,000. The organization is concerned, however, that donations may die down after this moment of “rage giving” is over. In addition to abortion access, the Black-woman-led Afiya Center works on a host of issues, including HIV/AIDS and Texas’ high maternal mortality rate. 

Nan Kirkpatrick, the director of external affairs for Jane’s Due Process—which assists teenage Texans seeking access to abortion and birth control—said their organization has likewise seen a “huge outpouring of support through online donations,” while the executive director of another Texas abortion advocacy organization (which asked to remain anonymous) had received roughly half of their normal yearly 501(c)(4) budget in just seven days since the SCOTUS decision.

Abortion funds are “definitely getting the attention that they deserve,” said Yamani Hernandez, executive director of National Network of Abortion Funds. Last May, Hernandez penned an editorial in the Chronicle of Philanthropy decrying the results of an earlier report by the National Committee For Responsive Philanthropy that found only 3% of the $912 million in philanthropic money for reproductive rights issues in 2019 was moved to abortion funds—and overall, only 20% of those funds were targeted to abortion rights and services.

Of course, the abortion funds that spoke with me are now facing severe restrictions on using the windfall of funds, thanks to SB8, which encourages vigilantes to target anyone who helps someone access an abortion beyond the law’s exceedingly narrow window, which kicks in the moment would-be fetal heart cells demonstrate electrical activity. Hernandez said that Texas abortion funds will face a five-fold increase in the cost of helping individuals access care.

Support is also rolling in to other abortion-related organizations, both in Texas and nationwide. In an emailed statement to IP from Abortion Care Network, Executive Director Nikki Madsen said that her organization’s Keep Our Clinics Campaign had raised $40,000 from 375 donors in the past week to support independent abortion providers. And Francine Coeytaux, co-founder and co-director of the nationwide Plan C, told me that her organization had received more than $50,000 in online donations from over 500 donors in just three days. Plan C provides people with the information they need to safely manage their own abortions, including by using prescribed medication ordered online—an obviously preferable alternative to either traveling outside of Texas or facing an increased risk of being sued by photo-snapping extremists outside of clinics’ doors.

Funders join the fray—and perhaps change their perspective

Some of the abortion funds and the funders that replied in time for this article said that funders are responding to the increased need—and, at least in some cases, reassessing the way that abortion care has been siloed away from the other multiple threats to democracy that are currently underway, including in Texas.

Kirkpatrick from Jane’s Due Process, for example, said that their organization’s grantmaking partners have been preparing to fund support around the various possible outcomes of SB8 since it was signed into law in May—including supporting the lawsuit filed by Jane’s Due Process and others that led to SCOTUS’s back-door decision on the bill. 

While the situation may “feel really new to a lot of people in our communities,” they said, “we have seen strong support from our funders who have traditionally supported us over the course of the summer wanting to help us prepare to be in a strong position to stay open and continue supporting our callers.” 

On the foundation front, Hewlett Foundation Program Officer Christine Clark said in an emailed statement, “We will continue providing support to organizations working to ensure that women can make their own decisions about their health and future,” and that “Hewlett is funding several organizations working to challenge the law and restore abortion access in Texas, help healthcare providers remain open despite severe restrictions on who they can provide care for, and help patients navigate their options.” 

And while Ford hasn’t made any emergency grants as a result of SB8, a spokesperson for the foundation said in an email that “the major organizations involved in the response to Texas are already getting substantial funding from us.” Other known funders of reproductive rights we reached out to—including the Susan Thompson Buffett, David and Lucile Packard and JPB foundations—are likely involved in the response in some manner, but we were not able to connect with them for details in time for this article.

One funder collaborative I reached out to shared news that’s cause for cautious optimism in terms of funding. The Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity, an organization of funders with a $40 million annual budget, that works at the intersection of gender, race and reproductive equity, has received “a number of calls” from funding organizations wanting to learn what they can do to invest in this moment, according to Executive Director Margaret Hempel.

More than that, though, Hempel told me that the collaborative held a learning session in August where participating funders were provided information on Texas-based groups “challenging the concurrent attacks on abortion access and voting rights.” 

Hempel said that her organization’s members are increasingly aware of the intersection of abortion rights, racism, gender equity and voting rights—and the fact that all of these rights are under attack at the same time, and frequently by the same people and organizations. In addition to an increased interest in investing on the state level, she said, “I do believe that people who have not worked, for example, on reproductive justice are now understanding those attacks as a broader attack on democracy. So I’m not sure why and how we got here; what I’m hopeful about is the pathway out.”

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated who can be sued under the new law. It has been corrected to reflect that abortion providers and those who help someone access the procedure can be sued.