National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice Strategic Plan Implementation Update: Year 1
In the first year of our 2024-2029 Strategic Plan, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (Latina Insitute) focused on the holistic implementation of organizational priorities while continuing to invest in our operational infrastructure. Despite the challenges of this current political climate, coupled with the impacts of budgetary constraints, we have made significant progress in key action steps to move all strategic plan objectives forward while simultaneously making pivots to bolster our infrastructure and security to effectively and courageously meet this difficult moment.
Underscoring the critical work still left to be done, our strategic planning process reaffirmed the importance of the work we are already doing. Rather than creating a shift in Latina Institute’s goals and priorities, the process instead proved that we need to double down and grow investment in our existing work to build long-term Latine power for reproductive justice. Below, we’ve outlined a high-level overview of our progress towards the following six Strategic Plan Objectives:
OBJECTIVE 1: Expand coalition-building efforts and allyship strategies to bolster existing efforts, maximize political power and reach, and drive a more cohesive plan to achieve reproductive justice. Our work as a Reproductive Justice organization lies directly at the intersections of civil rights, reproductive healthcare, im/migrant justice, and economic justice. We have cultivated long-standing relationships with diverse organizations working within these movements. Recognizing the need for cross-movement collaboration, we collaborate with our key partners to serve as bridges for information and knowledge sharing, where we can uplift the voices, experiences, and leadership of our communities.
National Collaborations: Intersections of Our Lives, which seeks to elevate the voices of Black, Latine, and AAPI people across reproductive rights, health, and justice movements; RJ Collab+ to create a national reproductive justice voter base and transform prevailing narratives about BIPOC and young voters—securing an awareness of our political power and engagement in the public imagination; Abortion Access Now, which aims to expand abortion and reproductive healthcare protections and access by building a long-term federal strategy to codify the right to abortion; and Free the Pill, to engage in a research study that documents access gaps of Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill.
State-Level Collaborations: At the state level, Latina Institute is active with place-based partners in our key states of Florida, New York, Texas, and Virginia—such as Floridians for Reproductive Freedom and Florida Protegiendo La Libertad, Trust Respect Access, Planned Parenthood South Texas, Adhikar, Bronx ReBirth, Virginians for Reproductive Freedom, Equality Virginia, and more.
In 2025, we are deepening our work with current national coalition partners to drive a more cohesive and comprehensive plan to achieve reproductive justice. We will also continue to partner with international organizations that seek to convene activists and organizations from Latin America (including the Green Wave movement) and the United States for cross-sharing and learning.
OBJECTIVE 2: Develop a community-informed Latine Reproductive Justice Agenda with short-term and long-term components that lay the groundwork for visionary reproductive justice wins. We are currently working towards a vision for the Community-Informed Agenda, as our policy team continues to identify and tier the level of participation and engagement from our community. Priorities deemed “high-level” will result in more avenues by which we can strategically engage our communities—such as submitting regulatory comments, providing testimony, participating in rallies, and storytelling. Due to the current climate, our capacity for response is limited; however, we aim to implement a Community-Informed Agenda over the course of the strategic plan.
In addition to monitoring policies and judicial processes, to ensure poderosas have timely, accurate information on policy and judicial changes, Latina Institute continues to monitor all legislative and judicial activity surrounding abortion access and reproductive justice.
Select highlights of our state-based work:
- In Florida, we engaged in ballot initiatives and base building campaigns, including Spanish language outreach for voter engagement and public messaging, which reached several leading Spanish news outlets (Univision, El Diario Es, and Telemundo).
- In New York, we worked to get the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Fund passed last year, and supporting Yes on NY Prop 1 to protect New Yorkers’ reproductive rights and freedoms—including access to abortion, with targeted outreach to Spanish-speaking voters.
- In Texas, we worked with partners to hold the line and ensure the defeat of policies that sought to further limit reproductive rights and access.
- In Virginia, as part of the Virginians for Reproductive Freedom, we are leading the constitutional amendment effort to enshrine abortion rights to the Virginia State Constitution.
OBJECTIVE 3: Fortify and grow base building, community organizing, and leadership development work to dramatically expand our base in key regions where reproductive justice issues are most threatened, and ultimately cultivate new active bases in, at least, two new localities within the five-year timeframe. Latina Institute aims to raise the profile and influence of our work on both the federal and state levels while ensuring our communities’ voices are heard. This critical work includes expanding our coalition‐building efforts and allyship strategies to bolster existing efforts and maximize our grassroots organizing power. We have increased our capacity in Florida and Virginia by hiring civic engagement coordinators who will engage with voters and nonvoters alike. The goal of our civic engagement work is to continually build out a base of individuals who are interested in our work, and keep them engaged by inviting them to join us to invest in their own leadership, gain campaign skills, and conduct outreach to others.
Spotlight on Pennsylvania: In 2025, we launched a pilot program in Pennsylvania to seed Latine power building for reproductive justice. After identifying localities that were largely Latine but had no presence of Latine-led reproductive justice organization, we worked with local partners who welcomed additional organizing capacity for advocacy work. With support from Abortion Access Now, we trained local leaders and an additional 27 Latine activists in Lancaster and Philadelphia, engaging them in the work of the coalition. These trainings will continue between now and Summer 2025.
The next phase of this pilot will include securing staffing capacity to lead trainings to continue to build the leadership of activists in joining national campaign efforts. We are currently exploring how and where to first focus those efforts, and we welcome conversations with resource partners who are interested in helping us meaningfully expand our organizing and advocacy infrastructure in the state.
OBJECTIVE 4: Create a culture shift plan to increase Latina Institute’s reach and impact by 15% in five years. Latina Institute aims to be a leader and resource on the intersection of Reproductive Justice and Latine communities for a diverse audience—which includes our base, partner organizations, policymakers and advocates, and Spanish- and English-language media. This work is especially critical now, when we know Latine communities—and especially Spanish-speaking communities—are at high risk for exposure to harmful medical and legal misinformation around abortion and reproductive health, particularly online and through social networking or messaging platforms. In 2025, we are moving ahead with Spanish-first content and messaging (as opposed to translating materials from English), in an effort to reach im/migrant and Spanish-speaking communities more directly and effectively.
Storytelling & Strategic Communications: In addition to providing factual and timely information to educate our communities, storytelling remains a key component to our work to empower Latines across the country. Our storytelling strategy is grounded in Latines finding the power of their voice and their willingness to share that power and story with others, to be heard and to move others into action. We embed storytelling across our work, such as our training sessions with poderosas, policy and administrative advocacy campaigns, door-to-door outreach and phone banking with voters, and through our social media channels and traditional media coverage.
In 2024, we invested significantly in developing our brave base of poderosas as storytellers and messengers who boldly engage with Spanish- and English-language media in order to uplift the realities of Latines. We made significant progress in this effort, and built out an online Poderosa Stories story bank that will feature diverse poderosas telling their own experiences around reproductive justice, im/migration, healthcare access, and other issues that impact Latine communities. However, due to increased concerns of risk regarding this current political climate, Latina Institute is now shifting our storytelling strategies to uphold the safety of our base. In 2025, we will pursue alternative storytelling formats, including animation and podcasting, which will allow us to share these stories while mitigating risk of harm to our poderosas. These new avenues for bringing Latine voices to the fore will require additional investments, including recording equipment and studio access.
Canvassing & Phone/Text Banking: In 2024, our canvassing and phone/text banking efforts invaluably deepened our understanding of Latines’ thoughts, questions, and feelings on abortion and reproductive justice issues—including the thoughts and feelings of Latines who are not currently with us in this movement. In canvassing for Amendment 4, our Florida team found that messaging around protecting bodily autonomy without interference was particularly effective. This learning has informed our work in 2025 to effect long-term narrative and culture change, and to support poderosas as they change hearts and minds within their own communities and shift cultural attitudes to reduce the stigma around abortion.
Alongside our growing engagement with the international Green Wave movement, Latina Institute is also making cross-border connections and taking advantage of the experiences and deep knowledge of Latin American activists who have worked on these issues, further strengthening our ability to be a trusted voice for Latine communities in the United States.
OBJECTIVE 5: Solidify administrative infrastructure to streamline organizational processes, increase organizational reach, and effectively measure impact. We know that a healthy, thriving organization requires continued infrastructure assessments and investments to best support our programmatic work, and ultimately serve our mission. In 2025, Latina Institute is making infrastructure upgrades related to time tracking, employee evaluations, recruitment and onboarding, and salary audits. We are additionally working to sync our finance and development software to support a more streamlined tracking of revenue and data collection.
Bolstering Resilience to Meet the Moment: Our Executive and Operations teams are actively strengthening safety and security policies and processes for technology and in‐person work, including our efforts working with legal counsel to create emergency response plans. We are additionally implementing immediate legal safety steps and protocols to support field staff amidst the current level of heightened threat to those working in the reproductive justice space, as well as increased targeting of Latine communities. To further support staff, we have additionally begun work toward organization-wide training on shifting towards a trauma-informed workplace and related collective care practices.
Language Justice: We continue to prioritize language inclusivity organization-wide by providing simultaneous interpretation services in English and Spanish at our meetings, trainings, and events. We translate all communications to staff in English and Spanish and outsource written translation of internal and external documents so that materials are transcreated in a manner mindful of the audience we serve. We educate partners and third parties around language needs to make translated materials and interpretation services available. This intentional effort ensures that everyone can engage in all facets of our work without barriers and has helped us increase our reach in the communities we organize.
Board Recruitment: Latina Institute’s Board of Directors is engaged in a process of identifying needs for board recruitment that seeks out a more diverse members, to work toward having a governing body that fully reflects the cultural diversity within the Latine community. The board has also actively challenged the team to hire women-of-color-led firms and consultants who are reflective of our values and the constituencies we serve.
Combatting Anti-Blackness & Anti-Indigeneity: We have created a Combating Anti-Blackness and Anti-Indigeneity (CABI) employee resource group that is working to help us combat internal prejudices, inculcate CABI into our everyday strategies, and ensure that our work includes and reflects all expressions of Latinidad. We included this work in our 2024 strategic planning process to ensure that we remain an anti-racist organization and continue to advance racial equity internally and in our programmatic work.
OBJECTIVE 6: Deepen development efforts to diversify revenue streams to strengthen infrastructure, advance organizational effectiveness, and sustain programmatic efforts. In the last year, we have made significant progress in growing staff capacity across teams, including Development (hiring an Officer and Manager for the Institutional Giving team). To further diversify our fundraising, we are making investments to help clarify our prospecting and research pipeline, refine our donor database for more effective cultivation and stewardship, and grow individual giving to expand major gifts efforts. We also launched an online merchandise store in 2024 and continue to explore other independent revenue streams for the organization via earned income and investments.
Additionally, we are refining Institute-aligned goals and work plans for Latina Institute’s Board of Directors, and will work with board members to identify greater opportunities for fundraising and major gifts over the coming years.
Challenges & What’s on Pause
While we have made significant progress on most action steps for 2024 to early 2025—for example, meaningfully scaling civic engagement efforts in Florida and Virginia, laying the foundation to pilot our Promotora program in Texas, and strengthening integrated communications work across our digital platforms—the current financial landscape for organizations like Latina Institute presents significant challenges. Therefore, the following work is currently on pause:
- Research to support our planned expansion into new key states
- Expanding our digital organizing work
- Establishing a National Poderosa Training Institute to increase poderosa capacity both within and beyond our key states
- Engaging in video content creation and disseminating poderosa stories via alternative mediums
- Implementing a community-informed agenda
- Launching a National Advisory Board
- Making key hires to support program expansion, including a Field Database Administrator, and Campaign Manager, as well as state-specific communications staff
Call for Support
Latina Institute’s 2025 budget is $9.8 million. In addition to expanded programming, our organizational overhead has increased due to inflation and other legacy impacts of COVID-19 on the economy. We have also incurred increased expenses due to rebuilding and expanding teams to meet and exceed pre-pandemic capacity. Lastly, legal counsel and holistic security assessments have emerged as an increasingly urgent budget item due to the shifting federal and state political climate around abortion and reproductive justice.
This year, several large and multi-year grants are either ending, being reduced, or a renewed partnership is uncertain, and some of our long-term partners will be sunsetting soon. Coupled with the hostile shift in federal administration and attacks to non-profits and the philanthropic sector, Latina Institute faces a heightened degree of uncertainty this year.
To mitigate these challenges, continue investing in existing programmatic goals, and to allow for expansion into new communities as identified in our strategic plan—
We are asking our partners in philanthropy to collectively help us
raise $1 million to reach our budget of $9.8 million for 2025.
Despite the present instability, we remain grounded in the deep understanding that Latina Institute is well-positioned to lead on our mission to achieve reproductive health and dignity for Latines across the country. We are committed to keeping our resource partners informed as we move forward with our strategic plan implementation so that together we can effectively meet the demands of the moment and lead the way toward a future rooted in salud, dignidad, and justicia for Latines and all communities in the United States.
With your support, we will continue our critical work to organize Latine communities, shift the cultural narrative, and drive meaningful policy change to achieve the lasting justice we deserve. Thank you for your partnership.