As a funding intermediary, RAD acts as a grantmaker for charitable donors, leveraging sector knowledge and grantmaking capacity to fuel and deploy funder investments in abortion service delivery through practical and timely responses to pressing challenges facing the field. RAD provides expertise and guidance not only to funders but also to grantees, sharing information, research, and customized technical assistance as needed. Since its inception, RAD has played an important role bridging independent abortion delivery and funders; this has brought over $71.2M in support to the sector to expand patient access, as of 2023.
Mission
Our mission is to promote the continued existence and resiliency of the U.S. abortion delivery sector so that abortion seekers have timely and equitable access to quality abortion care.
FAQs
A funding intermediary helps connect donors to the groups and causes they want to fund. A funding intermediary can offer grantmaking infrastructure, field expertise, and knowledge of grantees to support more effective (and, often, additional) investment in its sector.
RAD acts as a grantmaker for charitable donors that want to support the independent abortion delivery sector, which is made up of an array of taxable and tax-exempt entities. RAD also leverages our sector knowledge and grantmaking capacity to bring new and additional charitable funds into the field; connects funders and grantees that might not otherwise work together; and provides expertise and guidance to both funders and grantees.
RAD is supported by more than two dozen private charitable foundations. Some of these foundations give anonymously; those that give publicly include: the Coalition for Gender and Reproductive Equity, the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
RAD offers multiple funding streams. Our regular, ongoing funding stream is the Access, Quality, and Sustainability (AQS) fund, and independent abortion providers can apply for AQS funds at any time. The specific processes and timelines for our different funds vary, but generally include the following steps:
- The applicant completes a short pre-application form with basic information about the facility or project and the activity to be funded
- The applicant has a call with RAD staff to talk about the application and next steps
- The applicant submits an application with more information about the facility/project, the
planned activities, and their goals- If the applicant is a taxable entity, the applicant also provides information about its
finances and the community it serves; RAD uses this information to assess the
charitability of a potential funding award
- If the applicant is a taxable entity, the applicant also provides information about its
- RAD staff review the application materials and provide a summary and recommendations to
the RAD Advisory Board - The RAD Advisory Board reviews the application and makes a funding recommendation to the
Board of Hopewell Fund, RAD’s fiscal sponsor. The Board of Hopewell Fund makes a final award
decision - RAD notifies the applicant of the award decision
- If an award is granted, RAD provides the grantee with a grant agreement
- Once the awardee has accepted the award and signed the grant agreement, RAD deploys the
awarded funding to the grantee
The independent sector performs more than half of the country’s abortions, and the great majority of abortions after the first trimester. Yet as the sector has faced a web of challenges, it has historically been under-supported, in part because it is made up of an array of unaffiliated facilities operated by both tax-exempt and taxable entities. Charitable support helps independent abortion providers - especially those serving largely low-income populations - make facility improvements, expand capacity to meet anticipated patient surges, increase security to respond to increased protestor activity, and make other such investments that could not be made solely with service revenue.