The Compton Foundation respects the interconnectedness of population, peace, and environment issues with broader social development and environmental goals. These factors are closely interrelated and include the status of women, the health and safety of families, as well as the dynamics of population growth, consumption, and technology. We also recognize that many factors threaten human reproductive health, including toxins in our environment.

The goal of reproductive health and well being includes helping couples maintain equitable and responsible relationships, achieve their desired number of children safely when/if they decide to have them, avoid illness, disease, and disability related to sexuality and reproduction, and be free from sexual violence. The planning and prevention focus of family planning remains a central component of the Foundation's Population and Reproductive Health grant making. Family planning is the use of contraceptive methods, including emergency contraception, to determine the number, timing, and spacing of births. Achieving reproductive health and well being also includes assuring equitable access to safe and affordable abortion.

Consistent with our emphasis on prevention, the Foundation embraces a reproductive justice framework which focuses on reducing social and economic factors that create barriers to women and men of all ages accessing reproductive health information and care. In addition, the Foundation recognizes the complexities of abortion, and seeks to move our society to a more empathic position.

The Compton Foundation's focus on Population and Reproductive Health is part of our commitment to a world that allows for the full richness of human experience, both personal and global. At the personal level, the Foundation believes that support for reproductive health empowers women and contributes to improved health and quality of life for women, men, and children. At the global levels, we believe support for family planning ultimately helps achieve a healthier planet, by reducing the contribution of population growth to environmental deterioration and violent conflict.

Geographic Focus

The Foundation has the following geographic priorities:

• International: sub-Saharan Africa, Mexico, and Central America
• United States: projects that are national in scope and impact. In addition, the Foundation will support a limited number of projects in California and Colorado.

Goals

I. Increase Funding and Other Resources for Family Planning Services

A. Mainstreaming support for family planning

The Foundation places special priority on projects that develop new constituencies and/or link support for family planning to other movements and issues, including environmental sustainability, especially in the face of climate change; peace and security; reproductive health and rights; and health care reform. In this area the Foundation has a special interest in increasing support for international family planning.

B. Other strategies:

The Foundation will also consider other advocacy, research, litigation, education, training, and leadership development projects whose purpose is to increase long term funding and other resources for family planning and reproductive health services. This includes, but is not limited to, projects that strengthen existing constituencies and reduce polarization related to abortion. The Foundation will also consider a small number of projects that explore these issues and goals through the arts.

II. Improve Systems of Care that Deliver Family Planning Services

A. Improve international systems of care

1. The Foundation will consider proposals which develop and evaluate culturally appropriate and sustainable model systems of reproductive health care for youth. In addition, the Foundation is interested in proposals that improve access to family planning services for marginalized populations, as well as proposals that engage males in exploring gender equity as part of the process for moving women and men to fairness in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities related to their reproductive health.

2. We will also consider proposals that develop and evaluate model systems of care that integrate HIV and family planning services in Sub-Saharan Africa.

B. Improve systems of care in the United States

The Foundation is interested in proposals that strengthen and expand the capacities of domestic reproductive health service delivery systems, including systems that deliver comprehensive and medically accurate sexuality education. We are particularly interested in models of service delivery that can affect a broad spectrum of service delivery providers.

Priorities

In all of our Population and Reproductive Health grant making, the Foundation is most interested in time-limited projects with a discrete scope of work that have the potential for wide replication and adaptation. We also favor proposals that show the greatest likelihood of leveraging long-term policy or system change, and that increase access to high quality family planning services for underserved populations.

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