Seeding a National Maternal Mental Health Funders Collaborative, 2022

This project provides seed funding alongside a national group of funders including Perigee Fund, Community Health Acceleration Partnership, and the California Health Care Foundation to invest in the startup-infrastructure, governance, and initial membership recruitment for a National Maternal Mental Health Funders Collaborative. The collaborative is ultimately intended to be “owned” and financially sustained by its members. Funding will support independent consultants Shelley Waters Boots, Karen Howard, and Lena O’Rourke, who bring expertise in equity, policy, and funder collaboratives.

Maternal mental health (MMH) and substance misuse are leading causes of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and contribute to poor infant health outcomes. The goal of the funders’ collaborative is to engage and inform a strong cohort of donors to address three strategic objectives. First, the donor cohort will help advance investments in MMH, making investors more aware of each other’s investments and help communicate priorities and challenges across the group. Second, the collaborative will lead to more aligned investments on larger MMH strategy issues. Third, by creating a space for donors to connect, the MMH Funders Collaborative will aim to grow the number of investors in this space and increase private investments to strengthen the field.