Healing Awards Grant Program
In our 2017 community-based research, healing was mentioned as a core element of gender justice and was discussed alongside the ongoing legacies of colonization, structural racism, and patriarchy. Communities across the state voiced a need for care practices and rejuvenation for individuals and organizations working for social change. Participants described how their work can often be exhausting and grueling. In many cases, individuals working to create social change are also from the communities most impacted by inequalities. As such, there is a need to foster and build space for long-term self and collective care. Participants in our research emphasized, “We need the resources to nourish ourselves from within, instead of the nonprofit world just being like a contest of who can go hardest before you fall flat.” Support for healing and care is critical to creating longer-term change and sustainable organizations.
Based on what we learned, in 2018 we began to pilot a Healing Award program. Since 2022, the Healing Awards have prioritized organizations doing critical gender and reproductive justice work. Reproductive justice is inherently connected to other social justice and reproductive rights issues. These awards are intended to nourish and sustain the well-being of staff members of organizations working to ensure that New Mexicans have the social, economic, and political resources to make sound decisions about their bodies, families, sexuality, and reproductive health. From 2022 to 2024, the Healing Awards have funded a variety of self and community care and healing activities such as staff social and healing retreats, team-building activities, group social gatherings and trips, wellness courses, massage and acupuncture, and much more. Award recipients have expressed how profound these unique grants are in terms of supporting community and collective care and sustaining wellness in a way that general operating and program grants cannot. Read on to learn more about the Healing Award recipients from past and current cohorts.
The Healing Awards program does not accept applications. Sign up for our newsletter here for updates about other funding opportunities.
2022 – 2024 Healing Awards
ACLU of New Mexico
Communities served: Statewide
The ACLU of New Mexico works to protect and advance justice, liberty, and equity as guaranteed by the constitutions of New Mexico and the United States. The ACLU of New Mexico has been an integral partner in the fight to expand reproductive freedom in New Mexico from helping to get an old abortion ban off the books in 2021 to helping monumental protections for reproductive and gender-affirming health care to pass in 2023. Moreover, they have deployed strategic tools to fight back on anti-abortion ordinances around the state including building a network of local advocates to attend and speak at city and county meetings and organize against these efforts.
Bold Futures New Mexico
Communities served: Bernalillo and Doña Ana Counties and across New Mexico
Bold Futures leads policy change, research, place-based organizing, and culture shift by and for women and people of color in New Mexico. They center the lived experiences and expertise of those most impacted by an issue, engaging with people at the intersection of their identities. They also work to build communities where all people have what they need to make real decisions about their own bodies and lives, and all have room to live with respect and dignity. As a reproductive justice organization led by women and people of color, Bold Futures works alongside many families, organizations, and people across generations in New Mexico.
Center for Civic Policy
Communities served: Statewide
The Center for Civic Policy (CCP) works to empower and amplify the voices of everyday New Mexicans, especially those who experience oppression, to shape a more inclusive, responsive, and accountable democracy, using a racial, gender, class, and equity lens to build transformative power through collective responsibility and build thriving communities in New Mexico. In collaboration with local and national partners, they work to increase voter participation and turnout, identifying and training new leaders for civic life. As the convener of the NM Civic Engagement Table, CCP works to incubate campaigns and foster strategic partnerships, rooted in the power and experience of multiracial, LGBTQI+, and historically and systematically excluded communities, activists, and organizers, ensuring intersectional, cross-movement power-building strategies and grassroots organizing, to achieve a more just and equitable New Mexico where everyone can live in their full dignity.
The Crisis Center of Northern New Mexico
Communities served: Rio Arriba, Santa Fe and Los Alamos Counties
The Crisis Center of Northern New Mexico is the only domestic violence center in the northern region. Its mission is to extend crucial emergency services and supportive services for victims of domestic violence using a trauma-informed approach and to work towards decreasing domestic violence within northern rural communities. Their vision is that survivors can sustain a healthy life free of violence in which they can access services that understand the scope of their challenges without fear of losing their connection to society.
El Refugio Inc.
Communities served: Grant County and Hidalgo County
El Refugio operates the Casa Carmel Shelter for battered women/men and their children, and provides safety and security along with case management services and educational programs. They also serve and advocate on behalf of battered immigrant women and children who are afraid of being deported, offering shelter, food, and assistance in obtaining visas. They have worked to ensure that domestic violence shelters accept males over the age of 12 in their service area, inspiring the same policy statewide. El Refugio provides a doorway to a new life without violence, and pathways to reclaiming control and restoring self-respect.
Faith Roots Reproductive Action
Communities served: Statewide
Faith Roots Reproductive Action (formerly NM Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice) advocates for bodily autonomy by shifting religious and spiritual narratives and engaging in collaborative partnerships. They demand access to the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare, including abortion, for all persons. As a reproductive justice advocacy organization, Faith Roots advocates for reproductive justice and pro-abortion policies at the local and state level. Their Faith Roots Abortion fund assists patients traveling to New Mexico for abortion care with transportation, lodging, meals, and practical support.
Indigenous Women Rising
Communities served: Statewide and Nationwide
Indigenous Women Rising (IWR) is an Indigenous-led full-spectrum reproductive justice organization that is committed to honoring Native and Indigenous People’s inherent right to equitable and culturally safe health options through accessible health education, resources, and advocacy. IWR is one of the few organizations in New Mexico that provides an abortion fund open to all Indigenous people in NM, the United States, and Canada. They also fund and support midwifery care, menstrual hygiene, and sex education for Indigenous families.
New Mexico Asian Family Center
Communities served: Bernalillo, Rio Arriba, Lea, Sandoval, and Curry Counties
New Mexico Asian Family Center (NMAFC) was founded in 2006 and remains the only agency in the state providing culturally tailored services and programs to support a Pan-Asian community that advocates for and supports itself. NMAFC began primarily as a direct service agency led by Asian immigrant women to support local Pan-Asian women and families experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault, and other crimes. Since 2010, the agency has expanded to include multi-generational family programming, including Tea Talks, a men’s led initiative addressing male entitlement, patriarchy and gender equity, in an effort to build a network of strong male allies in the movement to end violence against women. They continue to build a foundation to further the movement by evolving Tea Talks to include voices of women and LGTBQ voices from the Asian community. In addition, NMAFC provides case management, counseling, and legal support for the Pan-Asian community.
Otero/Lincoln SANE- Southern New Mexico Wellness Alliance
Communities served: Otero and Lincoln Counties and Mescalero Apache Reservation
The Otero and Lincoln Counties’ Sexual Assault and Nurse Examiner (SANE) goal is to provide outreach and improved services to the rural communities in the area. The geographical area covered by Southern New Mexico Wellness Alliance’s SANE program is substantially large, encompassing nearly 12,000 square miles. As a part of this goal, the Alliance provides services to underrepresented communities with low-income populations such as Capitan and Carrizozo and conducts outreach to communities with extreme gender inequities, such as in Chaparral, and other communities of color such as Hondo and Tularosa. Within these communities, the Alliance presents at schools and other public forums and provide information about sexual assault, gender difference, sexual safety, body issues, safe dating practices, and gender roles. In addition, the Alliance initiates support groups for sexual assault survivors within the counties and communities served.
Progress NOW NM
Communities served: Statewide
As New Mexico’s progressive communications hub, ProgressNow New Mexico Education Fund centers justice for systemically excluded communities through partnerships, trusted digital communications, and issue-based and civic engagement campaigns. They provide communications support to reproductive justice (RJ) coalition partners though: communications plans, graphics, social media plans, press releases, live tweeting of legislative hearings and more. Additionally, they have a specific and intentional focus on tracking anti-choice movements as well as correcting digital disinformation. They also run educational programs that center storytelling and education on the intersection of RJ and other issues.
Silver Regional Sexual Assault Support Services (SR SASS)
Communities served: Grant, Hidalgo, Luna and Catron Counties
Silver Regional Sexual Assault Services (SASS) provides services to survivors of sexual violence and their families through case management, crisis intervention, community education and awareness, and counseling, as well as accompaniment services for both the SANE exam and legal proceedings. Sexual assault can occur for any gender but especially in LGBTQ+ communities, and they work to serve survivors of all genders.
SouthWest Organizing Project
Communities served: Bernalillo and Statewide
SouthWest Organizing Project’s (SWOP) NM Con Mujeres is an intergenerational gender justice platform using education and organizing to involve communities of color in collective healing. This is a multi-issue, multi-constituency platform that channels a traditional vision of interconnectedness and sees issues of economics, safety, health, education, and environmental life as integrated and of equal importance. Con Mujeres has an advanced network of allied individuals and groups, and they promote leadership and campaign development through their membership committee. They continue to anchor SWOP’s work in a gender justice foundation based on the lived experiences of New Mexico’s women, and they are connecting that foundation to the work of allies in social movements.
Strong Families New Mexico (Forward Together)
Communities served: Bernalillo, Dona Ana, McKinley Counties, and the Navajo Nation
Strong Families New Mexico (SFNM), a program of Forward Together, brings together organizations and activists statewide to build strong communities and create policies that work for NM families. They work to ensure that all families have the rights, recognition and resources they need to thrive — from affordable and quality healthcare to safer neighborhoods to benefits for workers. Reproductive Justice (RJ) has been at the center of their 30-year trajectory in New Mexico.
Black Health New Mexico
Communities served: Bernalillo, Rio Arriba, and Santa Fe Counties
The work of Black Health New Mexico (BHNM) is focused on a community-centered model that encourages community-defined interventions to public health problems, specifically health outcomes that disproportionately impact Black infants, mothers and families. Their mission is to provide community education and coalition building that increases community participation and leadership in health policy and programming. BHNM believes that interventions that seek to improve health outcomes, must be deeply rooted in and influenced by the expertise, leadership and lived experience of the communities most impacted. BHNM co-leads the Black and Indigenous Maternal Health Policy Organization and uplifts young Black women in their work through earned-credit or paid internships, centering their voices in the work, training them how to think more broadly about health disparities by centering the lived experiences of community members, engaging young people with their elder constituency and grounding them in a framework of care and healing.
Breath of My Heart Birthplace
Communities served: Rio Arriba and Northern Santa Fe Counties
Breath of My Heart Birthplace (BMH) is a community midwifery clinic located in Española that works to improve access to quality prenatal care and improve maternal and infant health outcomes in the rural communities of northern New Mexico, by serving families through a high-quality, culturally-appropriate midwifery model of care. BMH offers a no-cost walk-in prenatal clinic designed to make midwifery accessible for pregnant people and families in the Valley. Their programming focuses on serving those most impacted by health disparities and barriers to healthcare access, with special attention on the needs of young parents, Native Americans, immigrants, LGBTQ, and low-income families.
Changing Woman Initiative
Communities served: Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Sandoval, Rio Arriba, Taos and San Miguel Counties and Nambé, Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Taos, and Tesuque Pueblos
Changing Woman Initiative (CWI) is a Native American-centered women’s health collective, with a mission to renew indigenous birth knowledge and healing through the development of a culturally centered reproductive wellness and Native American birth center, the first in the country. Their vision is to renew cultural birth knowledge to empower and reclaim Indigenous sovereignty of women’s medicine and lifeway teachings to promote reproductive wellness and healing through holistic approaches and to strengthen women’s spiritual, physical, and emotional wellness. By creating a physical space for education and healing for Native American women, they reclaim their identities shaped through cultures, from birth, through motherhood, and all the life cycles.
El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos
Communities served: Bernalillo County
EL CENTRO is an Albuquerque-based grassroots and immigrant-led organization focused on growing the power of low-wage immigrant workers to improve working conditions, win dignified wages, create an inclusive and equitable economy, and defend and advance the civil rights of Nuevomexicanos. They utilize multiple strategies to impact systemic change and grow the power of immigrant families and low-wage workers such as grassroots organizing, information campaigns, leadership development, policy advocacy, voter engagement, and strategic communications.
Equality New Mexico (EQNM)
Communities served: Statewide
Equality NM (EQNM), a statewide LGBTQ advocacy, and civil rights organization, works to uplift the very clear ways that Gender Justice and Reproductive Justice are LGBTQ justice. They advocate for the vast array of Sexual Health, Education, and Reproductive freedoms that impact LGBTQ people and all people with birthing bodies. EQNM believes the decision of whether to create, how to create, and how best to navigate our families and structures is a key component of liberation, and they fight for these changes in public dialogue and policy conversations.
Navajo Breastfeeding Coalition
Communities served: McKinley County, San Juan County, Bernalillo County, Navajo, Apache, Pojoaque Pueblo, Zuni Pueblo, Santa Clara Pueblo
The Navajo Breastfeeding Coalition (NBC) supports the well-being of infants, mothers, and families through their pregnancies, labor, postpartum and breastfeeding journeys. Their Coalition’s programs and services include access to midwives/doulas, prenatal/postnatal care, and lactation support. NBC supports Indigenous birth keepers on their midwifery and/or doula journey through childbirth preparation, and skills and development workshops, as well as educating hospital facilities and communities about Indigenous-based values and teachings of community, kinship (K’é), and knowledge sharing. The NBC initiatives also work beyond the state of New Mexico to provide more programmatic activities to families across the Navajo Nation and in urban Indigenous communities.
NM Comunidades en Acción y de Fé (NM CAFé)
Communities served: Dona Aña, Luna, Grant, Hidalgo Counties
NM Comunidades en Acción y de Fe (NM café) is a network of diverse religious institutions and community broad-based organizations across Southern New Mexico committed to building relational power with and for New Mexicans who have been directly impacted by systems of injustice. They work towards building an inclusive economy that centers working people and families and treats those people with dignity. This includes building power to shape public policy at the local, state, and national levels and teaching leaders how to be effective public people. NM CAFé believes collective liberation relies on all of us
OLÉ Education Fund
Communities served: Bernalillo, Santa Fe, Valencia, Sandoval, Dona Ana, and Chaves Counties
OLÉ is a grassroots member organization of working families that centers the experiences of people of color, early educators, parents, workers and Immigrants, and creates a space for people to grow their leadership and create lasting change in New Mexico. Since 2009, OLÉ members and staff have worked together to strengthen communities using issue-based campaigns and electoral engagement to ensure that working families are playing a critical role in shaping New Mexico’s future with a united voice. OLÉ supports the broader Reproductive Justice (RJ) movement in New Mexico by developing leaders who help shape a supportive issue environment for RJ reforms and by taking a leadership role in women-centered worker justice organizing, most notably, organizing childcare workers to transform the workforce from poverty-wage employees to professionally compensated educators with clear career paths that they can navigate to attain higher pay, professional development, and power.
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains
Communities served: Bernalillo, Santa Fe, Valencia, Sandoval, Dona Ana, and Chaves Counties; Acoma, Isleta, Jemez, Jicarilla Apache, Laguna, Navajo, Sandia, Santa Ana, Ramah Navajo, Alamo Navajo
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) empowers individuals and families in the communities they serve to make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health by providing high quality health services, comprehensive sex education, and strategic advocacy. In New Mexico, PPRM works alongside other reproductive justice partners to secure access to reproductive health care, including through the momentous passage of SB 10, which solidified safe and legal access to abortion.
Sexual Assault Services of Northwest NM
Communities served: San Juan, McKinley and Rio Arriba Counties; Navajo, Jicarilla/Apache, Zuni, Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Communities
Sexual Assault Services of Northwest NM (SAS) works in northwest New Mexico and the surrounding Four Corners area to empower victims, provide crisis services, and create a community focused on prevention. In addition to providing direct services for survivors of sexual assault, they train and educate community members and school districts on prevention and active bystander intervention. Their education seeks to change attitudes and behavior related to how individuals and groups understand and actively work to prevent gender stereotypes that can lead to violence. SAS incorporates gender and reproductive rights into their work, relating it to the importance of equity and the goal of ending violence.
Southwest Women’s Law Center
Communities Served: Statewide and all 19 Pueblos
Southwest Women’s Law Center (SWLC) seeks to advance women’s well-being, rights, and power in New Mexico through legal research, policy analysis, advocacy, community, stakeholder education, and coalition work at the local, state, and national levels. The SWLC’s constituency is primarily Latinx, White, and Native American women and girls in New Mexico. Their work focuses on eliminating gender bias, discrimination, and harassment, lifting women and their families out of poverty, and ensuring all women have full control over their reproductive lives through access to comprehensive reproductive health services and information. Their current policy and legal work centers around getting a Paid Family and Medical Leave Act passed in NM, transforming the childcare system to be more equitable, educating stakeholders and pregnant people about the dangers of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, providing brief legal services to low-income women, and working with Tribal nations on domestic violence cases.
Tri-County Family Justice Center
Communities served: San Miguel, Mora and Guadalupe Counties
Since 2006, Tri-County Family Justice Center (TCFJC) has served domestic violence survivors of San Miguel, Mora and Guadalupe counties, utilizing resources available to advocate and provide direct service to those affected. Thanks to creative leadership and effective services, they have worked diligently within the community to help in the fight against injustices towards women and girls of color affected by domestic violence. TCFJC aims to provide support for women by utilizing collaboration and a coordinated community response towards ending violence. Their vision is to empower victims and survivors in the rural communities served and provide accessible resources to women to begin the healing process.