It`s only been three years since Reyes and a few friends worked as companions at an abortion clinic in Tuscaloosa, and the idea of creating an abortion fund was a dream. During the 2016 presidential campaign, they noticed that radical rhetoric increased and a sharp increase in the number of anti-abortion protesters began at the clinic and throughout the country. Then Trump won, urging Reyes and his group of friends to turn their aspirations into reality. In January 2018, they funded their first procedure. Yellowhammer Fund is a 501(c)(3) organization with a standard IRS year of 2017, and donations are tax deductible. These funds have received more attention as conservatives have stepped up their attacks on abortion over the past year. In 2019, an unprecedented number of extreme abortion restrictions were introduced and enforced in state homes — an aggressive attempt to undermine or overthrow Roe in the face of a Supreme Court upheld by Brett Kavanaugh. Within a week, Alabama passed its ban, Georgia passed a law banning abortions after six weeks, and Missouri`s eight-week ban was sent to the governor`s office for signature. In response, people who want to make an immediate impact turn to local groups that support women – including abortion funds like Yellowhammer Fund and Access Reproductive Care-Southeast, as well as providers like Planned Parenthood. Spontaneous social media campaigns bring in tens of thousands of dollars at a time, although much of the money raised was made through small donations.
In the two days following the ban`s passage by Alabama lawmakers, the National Network of Abortion Funds raised more than $260,000. In total, the group helped fund 314 abortions last year. In Alabama, abortions cost about $500 in the first trimester and $700 to $2,100 thereafter. Due to budget constraints – their budget was less than $85,000 last year – they were only able to focus on second-quarter procedures. But due to the recent influx of donations, the Yellowhammer Fund will be able to fund at least 1,000 proceedings in 2019. It has not been easy to keep the fund afloat over the past two years. Unlike Planned Parenthood, for example, which offers many other services such as Pap smears and STI tests, the Yellowhammer Fund focuses exclusively on abortion and especially helps women who cannot afford the procedure. It can be difficult and expensive to reach and support the people who need it most, but these organizations play a particularly important role in states like Alabama, where women have less government-funded support. Overall, the women who need help are disproportionately poor women of color — the same women who bear the brunt of abortion restrictions. In Alabama, there are few resources for mothers living in poverty. It has one of the lowest rankings for healthcare quality and is one of 14 states that have refused to expand Medicaid, meaning it`s a real challenge for poor women to access care. Notably, the state has a high infant and maternal mortality rate, the latter having increased by 21% since 2016.
The Yellowhammer Fund is one of many local abortion funds across the country that help low-income women pay for their abortions and plan logistics. They have emerged in recent decades, since Roe v. Wade guaranteed a woman`s right to abortion in 1973, and states then worked to restrict access to the procedure and financially cripple clinics. There are now only three abortion clinics in the state of Alabama, and there is only one left in neighboring Mississippi. At last count, six states in the United States actually had only one clinic. Therefore, local abortion funds often work together, as many of the women they help may have to cross state borders to get to the nearest abortion clinic. More than 70 funds, including the Yellowhammer Fund, are part of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which coordinates financial support and collaboration among local organizations. The fund now plans to launch what Reyes calls a “reproductive justice center,” which provides condoms, menstrual products, emergency contraception, diapers, formula, baby clothes and other resources to prevent pregnancy or help women support the children they have. Reyes says it`s her response to crisis pregnancy centers, which are nonprofits typically set up near abortion clinics and aim to advise women against the procedure. They are often religious and are known to provide false medical information.
Kirsten Gillibrand and Sanders tweeted about the Yellowhammer Fund, and sen. Kamala Harris, a competitor, sent a fundraising email promising donations to raise funds for Yellowhammer and other groups in the area. All the attention is already paying off: the Yellowhammer Fund is on track to fund three times as many abortions as last year. Independent – The organization is an independent organization or an independent aid organization (i.e., not associated with a national, regional or geographic grouping of organizations). (BMF Member Code: 3) Like the entire Encompass scoring system, the Culture & Community Tag is designed to evolve as metrics are developed and ready to be integrated. Our partnership with Feedback Labs and Guidestar by Candid, as well as other partners such as Fund for Shared Insight, GlobalGiving and Keystone Accountability, allows us to launch the first version of this tag with information about constituent feedback on the Candid website. Charity Navigator believes that nonprofits that engage in inclusive practices, such as. B gathering feedback from the people and communities they serve, can be more effective. We give all the credit for this lighthouse to any non-profit organization that completes the Candid survey, in recognition of their willingness to publicly share this information with the non-profit and philanthropic communities.
Although data quality will not be assessed at this time, future iterations of this tag will include third-party data or other data used to validate the information provided by the nonprofit. Form 990 is a document that nonprofits file with the IRS each year. We use the financial and accountability data it contains to create Encompass ratings. Click here to view that organization`s Forms 990 on the IRS website (if applicable). Working with the most marginalized communities on the biggest lightning rod problem, particularly in the South, has led the Yellowhammer Fund to fight for its visibility. “Getting a platform is really hard for us. We are a grassroots local organization that focuses primarily on self-help,” Reyes explains. “We don`t do a lot of things that people really consider worthy of the press. It`s not sexy. It can be a really boring job, really frustrating, really sad and demoralizing. At the local level, even more progressive politicians and pro-voting public figures have tended to avoid groups like the Yellowhammer Fund. For example, during the 2017 Alabama Senate race between Democratic Senator Doug Jones and Republican Roy Moore, Reyes and other members of his group consistently appealed on social media to Jones, who is in favor of the election, asking him to directly confront Moore, who is strongly opposed to the election, with the importance of the right to abortion.
But they had little success. (Senator Jones recently called the new abortion ban “shameful.”) And when Alabama voters pondered Amendment 2 last fall, a trigger ban that would make abortion illegal if Roe were overthrown, the Yellowhammer Fund asked candidates at the time if they would include a few questions in their phone bank about the change to fuel the conversation on the issue. Only one candidate, Will Benton, agreed. Amendment 2 was then passed and Benton lost his run in the Alabama House of Representatives to Rep. Rich Wingo, a supporter of the state`s recent ban. . Up to five of the highest-paid employees in this organization are featured here. This compensation data includes salary, barboni, and expense accounts and is displayed exactly as reported to the IRS. Amounts do not include non-taxable benefits, deferred compensation or other amounts not shown on Form W-2.
In some cases, these amounts may include the remuneration of affiliated organizations. Read the IRS guidelines for compensation reporting Note: The absence of a score does not indicate a positive or negative rating, but only that we have not yet evaluated this organization. “I`m devastated, I`m literally speechless,” Reyes tells Mother Jones. “I`m a very positive person, but I didn`t expect that.
