Partner Spotlight: Ausannette García-Goyette, Senior Program Officer, Irving Harris Foundation
We are thrilled to feature Ausannette García-Goyette in our latest Partner Spotlight. A key leader in the work to improve maternal and child health outcomes and ensure optimal birthing conditions for all, Ausanette is Senior Program Officer at the Irving Harris Foundation and plays a pivotal role in Illinois’ State Exchange for Maternal Health initiatives.
“Birth is a part of everyone's story and inextricable from all the other issues we care about. You cannot separate the healthy development of young children from the dignity and safety of the people who have birthed them, who raise them, and the conditions of the communities they’re living in. That's why I do this work.”
Ausanette García-Goyette,
Senior Program Officer,
Irving Harris Foundation
What drew you to the fields of reproductive justice and maternal and child health?
I came to this work from early childhood, but when I learned about Reproductive Justice, I found my political home. It resonated deeply with my values and how I understood the world—the need for justice that was inclusive of everyone. Particularly, those cruelly and unnecessarily pushed to the margins.
Birth justice lifts what birthing and pregnant people deserve to have—options for sites of culturally congruent care, a system that acknowledges past harms and works to do better—things that lead to better outcomes for children, parents, and their communities.
When I started to do this work, I also thought about what grounds me in it, including my ancestors and their birth stories—like, so few of my ancestors’ pregnancies and children surviving. My grandmother dying from complications of childbirth in Mexico, and my father left parentless at seven. My mother having a traumatic birth in the hospital, and then having me in a supportive and nurturing community-based birth center.
Birth is a part of everyone's story and inextricable from all the other issues we care about. You cannot separate the healthy development of young children from the dignity and safety of the people who have birthed them, who raise them, and the conditions of the communities they’re living in. That's why I do this work.
What factors shape your work in Illinois?
When I started at the Foundation, part of my role was to translate our national Birth Justice strategy into an Illinois strategy, while holding the connection between early childhood and reproductive justice. I was interested in nurturing our community-based advocates and birth workers, particularly Black and other people of color. With a few partners, including Chicago Southside Birth Center, Black Midwifery Collective, Black Girls Break Bread, BA NIA, and Chicago Volunteer Doulas, that effort has supported a growing community with greater visibility—an important part of the work, because it has meant government taking notice and making the issue a priority as well. Illinois created a birth equity initiative, harnessing the power of a healthy community of connected advocates, practitioners, and researchers, including EverThrive IL and the University of Illinois Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health, which also brings a social justice lens and connects community-based organizations to future practitioners in the maternal-child health space.
A lot of folks are doing really great work, there’s good policy on the books, and a growing community of BIPOC birth workers. The struggle is that there's not nearly enough folks to actually provide culturally congruent care —much like other places. Rural parts of the state suffer from lack of access; Chicago has care deserts. So, we're still coming up against those challenges and a lack of philanthropic investment, even though we have a great foundation to build on.
How did you get involved with the State Exchange for Maternal Health?
I reached out to folks funding similar partners—there weren’t many of us—and asked if they would be interested in coming together. As the Illinois Reproductive Health Rights and Justice Funders group continued to grow, we began thinking more about the action we could take and how we might make Illinois a model for full-spectrum, sexual, reproductive healthcare. While that is a little ambitious, what we did to start was invite funders across issues, including Early Childhood, Birth Equity, Maternal-Infant Health, and RJ, to think together about how we could de-silo our work to better reflect the realities and needs of our partners.
One of our funding partners already involved with the State Exchange team suggested they could be a resource, and we’ve been working with them to establish the value proposition of our new collaborative. How do we want to move? What do we see as ours to do? That work continues, but we will be sharing more soon to move some dollars and see where we can best be of service.
Shifting power to community is central to the Irving Harris Foundation’s mission. How does collaborative work help to advance that goal?
As funders, our jobs are more than just making grants. Collaboratives bolster our ability to connect, fundraise, and advocate - across philanthropy, government, and community - building a community of champions for the work over the long term. When the group is comprised of people from different issues and spaces, that diversity strengthens our ability to be resources to our partners.
Sharing insights from within philanthropy can be a way of sharing power, and we can also continually lean in to share the work of our partners and make introductions—sharing access that may not have otherwise been there to ensure we’re building bridges, never gatekeeping.
Ultimately, I see us planting seeds for something that will grow and continue to nurture this ecosystem after we’re gone—sustaining and supporting our community. There's real power in that.