Abstract for: Supporting Sustainable and Equitable Investment in Black-led Maternal Health Community-Based Organizations in Philadelphia, PA

Sustainable support of Black-led, maternal health community-based organizations (BLM-CBOs) is critical for expanding access to culturally concordant care for Black birthing people. National and local initiatives focus on investing in BLM-CBOs, but many do not adequately acknowledge the structural racism in existing funding systems that leads to unintended consequences and policy resistance that undermines their success. In this paper, we report findings from a group model building engagement clinic to explore the barriers and facilitators to sustainable investment among BLM-CBOs in Philadelphia, PA. After recruiting a core modeling team and co-developing a GMB approach, we conducted a two workshop GMB session with eight BLM-CBO leaders in Philadelphia. Participants generated a causal loop diagram illustrating dynamic mechanisms through which funders’ behaviors created hostile, white-normative environments for BLM-CBOs to navigate in trying to access investments. The heavy toll that BLM-CBOs experienced caused them to opt out of funding systems and create their own systems of resilience. However, these systems were precarious in their robustness due to internalized harm from the traditional system impacting trust between BLM-CBOs. These preliminary findings lay the foundation for future use of GMB in Philadelphia to better understand and create effective action to sustainably invest in BLM-CBOs.