Job Opening: NYAAF Intake Coordinator

NYAAF is hiring!

POSITION SUMMARY + COMPENSATION

Position: Part-time Employee, Intake Coordinator
Compensation: $35/ hr
Benefits: Unlimited vacation days, monthly phone stipend, monthly healthcare stipend
Time commitment: 20-25 hours/week, schedule to be determined by selected applicant and supervisor
Location: Remote within New York State (applicants in surrounding states will be considered on a case-by-case basis)

Reporting to the Interim Executive Director, the newly-created role of Intake Coordinator will join the New York Abortion Access Fund team during a critical time in our organizational and movement history. The Intake Coordinator will serve as frontline support to NYAAF’s growing number of callers seeking financial support for their abortions and is responsible for providing supportive, compassionate, judgment-free case management. The Intake Coordinator is also responsible for managing and providing support for a group of trained intake volunteers.

Currently, a weekly rotating group of five volunteers manage NYAAF’s call lines, with one volunteer assigned to each of the four lines—Spanish, NYC, Greater NY, and Outside NY State—and another that serves as Intake Support (a more experienced case manager who supports each of the volunteers on the line by answering any questions and taking on cases as needed). In this new position, the Intake Coordinator will provide additional support and oversight to this group, ensuring consistent care, smooth hand-offs from week-to-week, and direct management of certain cases. In collaboration with the volunteer case managers, the Intake Coordinator will be responsible for conducting calls, collecting and organizing caller documentation, drafting correspondence, and maintaining contact with callers. Additionally, the Intake Coordinator will assist with all administrative tasks related to intake. The Intake Coordinator will support the evolution of NYAAF’s intake program as it adapts to the changing landscape and increasing demand, while supporting to develop it into a staffed program. The Intake Coordinator will center facilitating a positive caller experience in all of their actions and decisions and will be committed to undoing abortion stigma.

The ideal candidate will be familiar with abortion funds or similar helpline services, deeply committed to the reproductive justice movement, and be a flexible, self-starter who is willing to tackle new projects and take on additional work, as necessitated by the evolving needs of our callers and team.

Read Full Job Description

RECENT NEWS: NYAAF in the New York Times

New York City Welcomes Growing Number of Out-of-State Abortion Patients

“The New York Abortion Access Fund, which pays clinics directly for low-income patients’ abortions, ‘immediately saw an influx of out-of-state callers’ after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last June, said Chelsea Williams-Diggs, the organization’s interim executive director….

The majority of people seeking help from the fund are New Yorkers, Ms. Williams-Diggs said. But since the Supreme Court ruling, the fund has helped people from 29 states and Washington, D.C., as well as six other countries.

Right after the ruling, the majority of out-of-state callers phoned in from Ohio, which had a ban at the time (it was later blocked by a judge). Now, the majority of out-of-state callers are from Texas, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania, where abortion remains legal but where certain restrictions are in place, Ms. Williams-Diggs said….

Ms. Williams-Diggs said she was proud that officials were “passionate and committed to making New York an access state,” but she noted that the fund was struggling to keep up with the surging demand.

Last year, the fund spent $1.2 million to help 1,800 callers, compared to just over $500,000 in 2021, Ms. Williams-Diggs said. This year, the organization is on track to spend more than $2 million, a figure she said was concerning because “we just simply don’t have that money in the bank.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/nyregion/abortions-out-of-state-nyc.html?referringSource=articleShare&fbclid=IwAR1KW-cICKwdwq8y0I2xgdi-witgEs30RaZd0yxbVVYtI-Atrkjf-9wygb4

NYAAF Fund-a-Thon 2023

Trivia party and community celebration of abortion access

You’re invited! NYAAF is participating in Fund-a-Thon, an annual grassroots fundraising campaign and celebration, where people like you gather your loved ones, have heartfelt conversations about why abortion access matters, and raise money for their local abortion fund!

By joining Fund-a-Thon, you participate in organizing your own communities, undoing abortion stigma, building relationships with fellow advocates, and mobilizing resources where they’re most needed to help people get abortions. To meet an unprecedented surge of funding requests within our home state and the rise in people traveling to NY from out of state, we have set the ambitious goal of raising $250,000, and to get there, we need the full support of you and our entire community!

You can fundraise on your own or grab a group of friends and start a team. You can even organize your own fundraising event. Whichever route you choose, we will give you tools along the way to support your peer-to-peer fundraising!  Check out our Fund-a-Thon Toolkit for a step-by-step guide to all things Fund-a-Thon.
Start a team or sign up as an individual fundraiser!

What NYAAF Has Been Up To This Past Year

We want to take a moment to share what NYAAF has been up to over the past year since we began a process of transformation. While we’ve continued our essential work of funding abortions, NYAAF has been quieter this year as we transition to become a smaller, more collectively-run, and women-of-color-led body.

Spurred by a long overdue internal reckoning with our disconnect from caller experience, NYAAF embarked on a transformation period in the spring of last year. While we continued to operate our helpline and fund abortions, we paused on other work — including external communications, recruiting new volunteers or board members, new advocacy campaigns, and hosting events unrelated to the call line. 

We used this period as an opportunity to stop cycles of harm by investing in community building, restorative justice, values alignment, strategic planning, organizational restructuring, and the transfer of leadership to existing board members who more closely represent our callers. We approach this work humbly, with a shared commitment to growth. and recognition that there is still so much work to be done to better represent and serve the holistic needs of our callers and their communities, as well as to better be in line with our broader movement of abortion funds and reproductive justice organizers. Through our ongoing strategic planning, we hope to reimagine and rebuild NYAAF.

During this period we completed the following:

  • Relationship and trust building – meeting up in person for the first times since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • Restorative justice circles.
  • Co-authoring a harm response plan.
  • Enlisting a strategic planning consultant and initiating a strategic planning process, including a multi-day retreat.
  • Restructuring our leadership structure to be more collaborative and building trust as a smaller, multiracial group.
  • Changing our funding protocols to become more caller-centric — eliminating unnecessary screening questions and embodying deeper trust in callers.
  • Distributing the most funds in our history — more than $720,000 pledged in the past year to around one thousand callers. During this time, we were proud to meet 100% of caller need.

While necessary, this transformation period has not been easy. We have gone from more than 20 active board members to now only 6  — all volunteers, all with day jobs and other commitments. Additional harm has been done as we’ve struggled together to confront how anti-Blackness and abortion stigma show up in our work and the abortion access landscape, and we have had to address that as it has emerged. We know that this work requires ongoing dedication, and we are committed to doing it together. 

Further, the state of abortion access across the nation has continued to shift. Caller need has grown as our lines have gotten busier and our pledges have gotten larger. But our relationship-centered work gives us the foundation to nimbly respond to this inflection point for our movement.

Because we have invested in building a stronger organization and building relationships with one another, we are in a stronger position to face the challenges of this moment. Our movement’s strength depends on a foundation of right relationship. 

Questions? Feedback? We’re here to be in conversation with you. We hope to share more with you about our transformation work soon, including during our in-person Fund-a-Thon celebration at Cafe Erzulie in Brooklyn on Sunday, May 22. RSVP here. We deeply value this community and look forward to filling the backyard with fellow activists and supporters! Please join and spread the word.

Yours in partnership,The NYAAF Board: Ambika, Chelsea, Julia, Karla, Maddy, Puja

Fund-a-Thon is on for 2022! 

Spring is abortion funding season across the National Network of Abortion Funds, and NYAAF is on our way to hitting our goal of $100,000 raised by peer-to-peer grassroots funders like you! There is still time to create a fundraising page and engage your friends, family, and community in conversations about the important work of abortion funding.

To fundraise with us, register online here! You can create a new team (teams can totally have just one person on them) or join an existing one. Your supporters can use the secure website to make donations to NYAAF. Fund-a-Thon goes through the end of May, so sign up now!

Fund-a-Thon is the main way NYAAF raises the money we need to fund ever caller who needs our help to cover the cost of their abortion. And further, by participating in Fund-a-Thon and talking to your loved ones about why abortion access matters, you not only raise the funds needed for abortion in your own community, but are also  breaking down abortion stigma. If you’re not able to make a page and fundraise yourself, you can make a direct donation to NYAAF’s Fund-a-Thon campaign here.

We are also unbelievably excited that this year we are having an in-person Fund-a-Thon event for the first time in three years!

We invite you to join us at Cafe Erzulie in Brooklyn on Sunday May 22nd from 2-5 pm for an open bar, small bites, good music, and an amazing community of dedicated supporters and activists. Fund-a-Thon participants will get in free; others will be encouraged to make a $15 donation. (We will be checking vaccine cards at the entrance). We hope to see you there! Please RSVP here.

Despite growing attacks on abortion access, we are forging ahead with our essential work and taking time to celebrate the joy of abortion funding. Your support and efforts ensure that NYAAF can continue to provide abortion funding to every person who contacts us seeking care. 

Sign up to fundraise, and we’ll see you on the 22nd!

Supporting Abortion Access in New York and Beyond

The New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF) supports anyone who needs assistance paying for an abortion in New York State, or for New Yorkers seeking care elsewhere. The New York Abortion Access Fund believes that every person should be able to determine their own reproductive destiny and have access to the resources, rights, and respect to be able to do so. We believe that access to affordable abortion care is a critical component of full-spectrum healthcare services. 

We are an all-volunteer, 501(c)(3) organization, and we rely on our community to provide funding to our callers. You can make a donation to NYAAF through our website by clicking here.

We are a member of the National Network of Abortion Funds, a network of abortion funds across the country. If you want to support Texans seeking abortion, we suggest you donate directly to abortion funds in Texas. A list of those funds–and a link to donate to them all at once–is available here.

If you need assistance paying for an abortion, please call our helpline at 212-252-4757 and leave a voicemail. Someone will get back to you within 24 hours.

Thank you for your support!

NYAAF raised over $47,000 through Fund-a-Thon!

Thanks to our entire community NYAAF raised over $47,000 for abortion access through this year’s Fund-a-Thon! While we didn’t quite make our goal of $60,000, we have so much to celebrate. Every dollar raised will go directly to building power and funding abortion in New York, ensuring that NYAAF can serve every person who calls our helpline.

We participate in Fund-a-Thon every year because we believe that funding abortion is an act of community care. NYAAF is able to be there for callers year in and year out because our community is there.

We want to extend a special thanks to the Rochester and SyracuseDSA chapters for joining powers to host a trivia party for NYAAF, and the SuffolkDSA for hosting a raffle for abortion access.

Also! If you still want to make a gift to Fund-a-Thon it’s not too late! You can make a donation here and note in the comments that it’s for Fund-a-Thon.

Thank you!

Support Efforts Upstate to Expose CPCs

by Lauren Ashley deLancey, ROCDSA Socialist Feminist Collective

The Socialist Feminist Collective is a group of Rochester, NY Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members organizing around reproductive freedom, economic justice and other feminist issues that especially impact the working class and the poor. We’re proud to have organized several Bowl-A-Thons with NYAAF and are always happy to support an abortion fund that does such incredible work in the state. 

Inspired by our socialist feminist comrades in Pittsburgh DSA, we spent much of 2020 preparing to launch a campaign against Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), sometimes called Pregnancy Resource Centers, in Rochester.

Our goal is to expose CPCs for what they are: fake abortion clinics with an agenda that don’t provide the legitimate reproductive health care that all people deserve. We’re giving the Rochester community the tools to recognize when they’re interacting with a CPC and the resources they’ll need to visit abortion clinics and legitimate reproductive health care providers instead. And as socialists, it is important to us to provide resources to poor pregnant people, including information about how to access abortion funding in Rochester through our friends at NYAAF and where to go for material aid like food, clothing, and baby supplies. 

We’re kicking off this campaign in the new year with a social media push to collect stories about experiences and the release of our new printed brochure about CPCs. If you are a person who sought reproductive healthcare but ended up at a CPC, tell your story! You can submit anonymously through this form, and we may use your experiences on social media or in printed materials. 

Want to learn more? Follow us at @rocsocfem on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and email us with questions, concerns, or ideas at rocsocfem@gmail.com.

Thank you, you blew us away!

Dear friend,

When we called on our community to show up for Giving Tuesday, you astounded us with an inspiring display of power.

With you, we nearly doubled our Giving Tuesday goal of $6,000, with 104 supporters bringing in $11,345! And 27 of you took to social media to mobilize your own communities to donate and understand the realities of abortion access, including  how abortion funding  is linked to racial justice, wealth redistribution, and mutual aid.

We believe that everything we do to create a world without barriers to abortion is only ever possible through community. That’s why our leadership is collectively-run and non-hierarchical. That’s why the bulk of our funding comes from individuals like you, not big foundations and corporations. You’ve been a part of facilitating abundance and support for people seeking abortions in a system that was designed to fail them.

We are always grateful for the network of people in New York and beyond who make this work possible, and we’re particularly inspired today. Thank you for your powerful show of love and community support. Funding abortion is an act of care. Thank you for caring and showing up for people seeking abortion care. 

In community,
The NYAAF Board of Directors

P.S. Did you miss us on Giving Tuesday? Become a monthly supporter or make a one-time gift here