“We shouldn’t have to ask permission to save our lives.”
-Jennie Joseph, founder Commonsense Childbirth
“There is a roaring consensus that we are suffering from a poverty of implementation, not ideas”
-Dave Chokshi, MD, former Commissioner of Health, NYC
“Maternal deaths happen in the facility but the work starts in the community. Professionalized community workers that are recognized by the system, supported and supplied, is the formula for success. The issue isn’t infrastructure but linking community based workers into sustainable policy.”
-Yasmin Maddan, Director and US Lead Philanthropic Collaboration, Co-Impact
The Aspen Global Innovators Group (AGI) is uniquely positioned to collaborate with non-profit leaders, social impact investors, medical systems, entrepreneurs and public sector leaders to partner and coordinate to accelerate the implementation of new and existing solutions that reduce maternal mortality rates among black women and facilitate the wellbeing of the mother and newborn and family. We have a strong track record in linking innovative work at community level to state, national, and global policy and practice, and to support the leadership trajectories of community based leaders to highest level forums and realized impact.
The severity of the black maternal survival crisis, and the voices of many of our fellows asking the Innovators Group to support them more intensively on this issue, led us to hold a Black Maternal Survival Roundtable in July, 2024 at Aspen Ideas Health to assess the need for this initiative with a diverse group of stakeholders, and to begin to design the Aspen Black Maternal Survival Initiative.
We aim to serve as a coordinated and visible solutions- oriented leadership and advocacy platform. We aim to launch in 2025 by executing the following activities
- Landscape analysis of existing effective solutions and models to reducing black maternal survival
- Supporting community based maternal survival leaders a year in an intensive fellowship program
- Create state level communities of practices that bring together community based practitioners with state level policymakers to highlight effective practice, create space to replicate and scale effective practices and build collaborative relationships and initiatives
- Amplify leader’s voices and solutions in high level state, national and global forums
- Link US based best practice to global best practice through Aspen Black Maternal Survival High Level Advisory Council
- Connect community based entrepreneurs with catalytic funding
- Support effective advocacy for policy change among diverse leaders
- Elevate attention to the maternal mortality crisis in diverse high level forums
- Create effective stories of success in partnership with media outlets
- Advocacy for paid family leave
- Support and amplify more neighborhood and collective solutions
Meet the High-Level Advisory Council Members
