The Background 

The New Jersey Birth Equity Funders Alliance was launched in 2021 by the Burke Foundation, the Community Health Acceleration Partnership, The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with partnership and support from The Nicholson Foundation. The group came together to tackle birth inequities in support of Nurture New Jersey, a state-wide maternal and infant health strategic plan. New Jersey has some of the worst inequities in birth outcomes in the country - where Black women in New Jersey are seven times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. The Alliance is focused on advancing community-based solutions to address maternal mortality and birth equity in New Jersey, serving as a model for the wider field.

The Approach

Afton Bloom, in partnership with Boldly Go Philanthropy, initially joined the effort to create a charter for the founding funders which set the priority goals, defined the core values, and laid out the approach to engagement and decision making. From there, Afton Bloom conducted a strategy process which set to understand the unique role this funder alliance could play in reducing disparities across the state. The process included (1) working sessions with funders to align strategies and prioritize goals, (2) interviews with BIPOC-led community-based organizations (CBO) to surface needs, and (3) ongoing meetings with government actors to understand gaps and challenges.  
 
The strategy ultimately focused on supporting BIPOC-led CBOs and prioritized a need for participatory grantmaking in the execution. Afton Bloom and Boldly Go helped the Alliance set up a fund and Community Advisory Committee that would have full decision-making control over the distribution of the funds. After providing two years of support, Afton Bloom helped to hire and onboard the Alliance Executive Director Cecile Edwards who now directs the Alliance and is continuing to expand its impact.  

The Result 

Afton Bloom's strategy as well as implementation support to the Alliance has led to the setting up and scaling of the funders' collaborative resulting in: 

• Recruiting and capacity building for community leadership as the Alliance Manager and a 7-member Community Advisory Committee (CAC).  

• Undertaking a first-of-its-kind, community-informed, participatory landscape scan of local nonprofit organizations, and sharing results for the wider field and are now shaping grantmaking and Technical Assistance program. 

• Disbursing over $200,000 in the first year of the CAC grantmaking with 95% of the Alliance's grantees representing organizations that hare first time grant recipients. 

• Inducting two new members (Organon and Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation) into the Alliance funder group.