Power to Decide

Now completing its fourth year, the Foundation’s ten-year Special Initiative to Reduce the Need for Abortion is designed to reduce unintended pregnancy and enhance the work of reproductive health and rights organizations. The lead grantee for this initiative, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, focuses not only on teens but also on adults in their twenties because women in this age group account for over half of the nation’s unplanned pregnancies and abortions. During the past year, the National Campaign made significant progress toward its goals, including securing a partnership with the Ad Council through which a major for-profit firm will provide $100 million worth of advertising aimed at increasing the use of contraception and promoting the National Campaign’s website www.bedsider.org. The National Campaign’s most important policy objective was also achieved in 2010: the passage of a health care reform provision that will significantly increase the number of states offering free contraception via Medicaid waivers. Although state budget crises have stalled implementation of this provision in a number of states, research supported by the Hewlett Foundation projects that, if fully implemented, the provision could reduce the number of annual abortions by over 150,000—a more than 10 percent reduction. The National Campaign and a small number of other Foundation grantees, including the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the National Women’s Law Center, can all rightfully claim credit for this victory. During the next year, the National Campaign intends to focus on four areas: • Improving key policies in both the private and public sectors, particularly federal public policy, in order to increase access to high-quality family planning services and related programs. • Increasing the ability and motivation of individuals to behave responsibly with regard to pregnancy planning and prevention (with a focus on both traditional and digital media). • Conducting special outreach to high-risk groups, including Latino teens and young adults, foster care youth, and community college students. • Supporting these program activities with strong research and communications activities. In 2011, the Foundation will conduct an external evaluation of the National Campaign and share the results with the Board in 2012. This evaluation will inform the decision of whether to renew the current multiyear grant, which ends in early 2013. The current $10 million grant ending in 2013 for the Special Initiative to Reduce the Need for Abortion came from the Extraordinary Reserve. The recommended one-year $2 million grant on this docket is from the core Population Program budget in order to supplement the larger grant and offset a small part of the reduction in funding for the Initiative from the Extraordinary Reserve.