By Dr. Tamara Wilds Lawson, President & CEO, Washington Area Women’s Foundation
In recognition of Black Maternal Health Week, The Community Foundation is proud to announce its support for the Washington Area Women’s Foundation with a multiyear grant from the Developing Families Maternal Health Fund.
Administered by The Community Foundation, the Developing Families Maternal Health Fund is dedicated to improving health outcomes for vulnerable and marginalized populations in Metropolitan Washington, DC by fostering partnerships, supporting innovative solutions, and advocating for policy change and advancing infant and maternal health for all residents of the Greater Washington region. The Washington Area Women’s Foundation (WAWF) is committed to ensuring that women and girls of color have the opportunity, resources, and support to thrive and lead in our region from birth to the boardroom.
In this special guest post, Dr. Tamara Wilds Lawson, a seasoned social impact leader and President & CEO of the WAWF, shares the rationale and vision behind their new Maternal Health and Birth Equity Program, as well as it’s potential to ignite change in our community.
For over 27 years, Washington Area Women’s Foundation has been a driving force for gender equity across our region and remains the sole foundation in the area focused on funding organizations serving women and girls. The Foundation’s grantmaking reflects our commitment to ensuring a better quality of life for women and girls through our Early Care and Education program, Young Women’s Initiative and Black Women’s Leadership Project, which was born out of our 2023 report, Thrive as They Lead.
Throughout our history, we have prioritized addressing needs identified by the community and amplified the voices of women and girls closest to those needs. As we began to wind down our impactful Stand Together Fund, initiated in response to the pandemic, the Foundation sought other areas where we could make an impact. In 2024, with support from the Meyer Foundation, we conducted a landscape analysis in partnership with Boldly Go Philanthropy to assess how we could enhance maternal health and birth equity grantmaking in the region.
We were compelled to study this issue because, despite years of attention and critical work being done to address the region’s maternal health crisis, the systems designed to support women during one of the most powerful and vulnerable times in their lives continue to fall short. Our engagement centered on the expertise of community birth workers, local nonprofits, health practitioners, and the women navigating these systems every day.
Here's what we found:
Families face steep barriers to accessing care, especially low-income families, immigrants, teen parents, and middle-income households that are ineligible for public support but unable to afford private services.
Across our region, Black and Brown women are disproportionately vulnerable to preventable complications before, during, and after childbirth.
Black residents account for half of all births in the District, yet 90% of pregnancy-related deaths. In Prince George’s County, nearly one in two birthing people lack adequate prenatal care.
Community-based doulas, midwives, and nonprofit leaders are actively addressing the crisis, but with inadequate support and unstable funding.
Hospital systems continue to rely excessively on unnecessary interventions, such as C-sections, which increase risk and trauma.
The birth workforce is strained, underpaid, and excluded from decision-making spaces, even as demand for their care grows.
The Women’s Foundation is uniquely positioned to lead this work. Since our founding, we have cultivated deep relationships with local changemakers and maintained the trust of our community by moving resources quickly and equitably. We also know this work cannot be done in silos. As we have seen through the success of the D.C. Safe Babies Safe Moms Program, advancing birth equity requires coordination among philanthropy, healthcare, policy, and community care. It also demands funders who understand the sustained and comprehensive investments needed to tackle and eliminate this crisis.
That is why we are incredibly grateful to The A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation and The Greater Washington Community Foundation’s Developing Families Maternal Health Fund, which enabled us to officially launch our maternal health and birth equity program. Given the intentional way The Women’s Foundation does our grantmaking, it is vital to have nascent funders who recognize our need to build this program thoughtfully, inclusive of community engagement and critical infrastructure development. Because of their investments, our first round of grantmaking will take place this year primarily supporting organizations focused on strengthening the birth workforce, addressing the social determinants of maternal health, and expanding access to mental health resources.
This new program reflects our belief that ending this crisis will necessitate a comprehensive commitment and is key to our investment in the power of women and girls from birth to the boardroom during such a critical time for our region. To learn more about Washington Area Women’s Foundation and the various ways to support our work, please visit www.wawf.org.