Annual Report 2023 Celebrating 20 Years of Minga
Celebrating 20 Years of Minga 2003-2023
Table of Contents
1
Letters from Minga’s Co-founders
2
2023 Year in Review
3
Highlights from 20 Years of Impact
4
Meet Our New Partners: Peacekeeper Society and SEIINAC
5
A Timeline of Minga
6
Reflections from the Board
7
2023 Financial Snapshot and Supporter Thanks
From Our Co-founders: Jessica Backman-Levy All year, I’ve been thinking about the incredible fact that the Minga Foundation has been around for 20 years. First and foremost, I'm proud of the relationships we've created. When I say relationships, I'm talking about the relationships we've built between ourselves as a board of directors, as well as the relationships we've established with our partners. As a board, we are a family. Many of us have literally grown up together, with a new generation following in our footsteps. We've been there for one another during illness, marriages, divorces, births of children, new jobs, loss of jobs . . . all the highs and lows that life brings. Because of that history, we keep showing up. We have earnest, difficult conversations that challenge one another, push our comfort zones, and allow us to be ethical, thoughtful collaborators. It's because of all of these relationships that Minga has been able to survive 20 years and touch the lives of many. With our partners, we create lasting relationships that are built on open communication and mutual trust. Because of that, we often hear from partners that they feel comfortable reaching out to us, asking difficult questions, and – for the most part – holding us accountable.
At Minga, we do what we do because we love it, and because we're passionate about our values. We don’t shy away from a challenge and we continue to embrace change and growth. Through Minga, I've learned ways to think critically, to be patient, to communicate effectively, to build sustainable, mutually respectful partnerships, to lead, and to demonstrate humility, humility, humility. I feel so grateful to have been able to have applied those lessons in my personal and professional life. Of course, our work couldn’t happen without the nearly 1000 donors who have supported us and, more importantly, our partners. Thank you to every one of you for your contributions; I hope you continue to feel moved to give to work that continues to mean as much to me as when Minga first began.
From Our Co-founders: Karin Friederic
Twenty years ago, in 2003, friends and I established the Minga Foundation as a nonprofit. We started Minga to help build and support a health center in rural Ecuador (needless to say, that project grew and grew). The health center, now co-managed by the community and the Ministry of Health, has been so successful that it has: Eliminated malaria from the El Paramo region. I don’t usually talk about it, but once upon a time, I had young children dying on me because cerebral malaria was so rampant. That is one reason I became so passionate and committed so quickly to the work. Reduced maternal and infant mortality: with preventative medicine, vaccine access, and a permanent on-site OBGYN, we have far fewer women dying in childbirth. Trained people from the community as administrators, nurses, and lab techs, giving them jobs, dignity, and community representation in health services. Provided medical and psychological services to survivors of gender violence.
Through my research and personal contacts, I’m still heavily invested in rural Ecuador. The place was with me in grad school, where I reflected on and deepened the community work I was doing with Minga; it persists in my professional career as an academic (I just published a book, The Prism of Human Rights, on men’s and women’s changing experiences with gender violence over the past two decades); and lives on in my family, as we bring our child into relationship with the places and people I have come to love through Minga. In all these phases and spaces, Minga has been there with me, and as part of me. It’s where I have put into practice the global/community work in which I believe and have developed scholarly expertise, and it’s where I’ve deepened my thinking around the work as it happens in practice. Thank you to everyone who has supported me and Minga through these two decades – keep reading to learn more about where Minga’s work is today.
2023
2023 Year In Review
1
20 years into our work, the Minga Foundation has built deep relationships in many parts of the world. In 2023, we focused on closing two formal partnerships, just as we begin two new ones.
Forged two new partnerships, one in the US and one abroad
This year, we set out to find two new partners, one that builds on our nascent work in the US, and one that takes us back to our roots in Latin America. We considered 50 applications from seven different countries.
2023
Intentionally, Minga remains engaged with and responsive to our partners from the past, as our relationships don’t end when a well is built or an orchard is planted.
In September, we announced our partnership with Peacekeeper Society, a woman-led Indigenous organization on the Yakama Reservation, and in December, with SEIINAC, a youth-led organization in Hidalgo, Mexico. Read on to learn more.
2
3
Completed two meaningful partnerships
Sent relief funds to past partners NAYO and BUVAD
We provided a $10,000 grant and supported Lighthouse Foundation of Chicagoland as they rapidly expanded their funding sources and staff in service of the Black LGBTQ+ community.
Minga is dedicated to health, development, and human rights, not emergency relief, but we have realized that past partners often require relief to sustain their gains over the long term.
Over seven years and amid many local and global challenges, our work with LUWODEA has made significant contributions to health, gender equity, and food security in the Kamuli District of eastern Uganda.
This year, we provided funds to both BUVAD in Uganda, to support their district health team, and NAYO in Malawi, to bolster their medical clinic. Both communities are facing outbreaks of cholera.
20
Highlights: 20 Years of Impact
20
years of basic health care services in a dynamic rural health center | Ecuador
4,000
12
wells built, serving 12,000-15,000 thousand people and managed by the community | BUVAD
20
10,000 reusable menstrual pads produced and distributed | LUWODEA
young people accessing sexual and reproductive health resources at new youth center| NAYO
highest ever reported yields of açaí | ARQDVC
20 $49,100 21%
increase in use of free HIV/AIDS services | LUWODEA
received from the Inter-American Foundation with Minga’s support | ARQDVC
1.2 M listeners to Youth Power Gender Radio | NAYO
Meet Our New Partner, Peacekeeper Society Peacekeeper Society — or Peacekeepers — is a female, Indigenous-led nonprofit with a vision “to provide life changing opportunities for Indigenous people.” Since 2015, Peacekeepers has been serving the Yakama Nation on the largest Indian reservation in Washington State, with approximately 6,000 Tribal members living there. This has led to the development of programs related to grief recovery, traditional foods, water access, emergency response, and cultural preservation. As Interim Executive Director Lucy Smartlowit puts it, “preservation is prevention,” with the potential to increase resilience and bolster both mental and physical health. Peacekeepers is also deeply committed to Mutual Aid work. This year, they’ve served 1,408 pets, 2,230 families, and 7,337 individuals – including 340 who were unhoused – through programs delivering food, hot meals, and other supplies.
In our partnership with Peacekeepers, we will be supporting the Paaxamit Design School, dedicated to preserving and celebrating the revitalization of traditional cultural practices. A key program is working with community participants to design, sew, and bring to life one of each of eight traditional powwow dance regalias.
MeetMeet Our SEIINAC New Partner, SEIINAC SEIINAC is a youth-led organization that works for the rights of children, adolescents, women, people of gender diversity, and people living with HIV in Hidalgo, Mexico. Since 2008, SEIINAC has combined popular education, community empowerment, and political mobilization to advocate for and defend human rights. They have been so effective that government agencies now seek them out as partners for outreach and collaboration. We hope to collaborate with SEIINAC for several years, with the first focused on an ambitious project to expand Indigenous access to abortion, now decriminalized across Mexico. SEIINAC has primarily served urban populations, so this new work in the Huasteca region is exciting for both organizations.
The project will involve: Translating materials into Nahuatl, Delivering abortion rights workshops in Indigeneous communities, Working with health providers to build rights awareness and cultural competency, and Establishing a digital platform for monitoring, evaluation, and follow-up.
A Timeline of Minga
2000-2003: Groundwork for Minga | Karin and Jessica volunteer in Ecuador to build gender-sensitive health services and educational programming
“We saw them as our family. This partnership birthed the idea that 'success' means building enduring relationships, not establishing an 'exit strategy.’” —Jessica
2003-2018: La Y Health Center, La Y de La Laguna, Ecuador | The project allows the community to win unprecedented access to government-provided doctors and medicines
2003-2010: Foundation Human Nature | With Erin, they create the US branch of FHN, raise more than $500,000, and recruit and manage dozens of medical volunteers
“Through this partnership, we learned building long-term community power can leverage government and other resources to address multiple needs.” —Karin
In 2010, Minga’s founders step away from the collaboration with FHN to become an independent nonprofit organization committed to sustainable community-led development work.
2012-2017: BUVAD, Kayunga County, Uganda | This water well project provides an opportunity to learn from lessons of the past, working holistically to create lasting impact
2013-2016: Kabudula Education & Empowerment Project (KEEP), Malawi | A library and scholarship program spur further investment in girls’ education
“With BUVAD, it was not just about the infrastructure. Beyond the technology, we had to consider governance, gender politics, and the human and political realities about accessing water in the region.” — Karin
2015-Present: ARQDVC, Carrazedo, Brazil | A water access and acai orchard project calls for flexibilty and responsiveness and ignited community action
2016-2022: Nancholi Youth Organization (NAYO), Blantyre, Malawi | This partnership produces a gender equity campaign, youth radio show, and health clinic that are still thriving today 2016-2023: LUWODEA, Uganda | Our food security, economic security, and menstrual hygiene projects - as well as a test and demonstration farm - all center on women’s and girls’ empowerment
The choice to partner with U.S-based organizations represents a new chapter for Minga, requiring deep consideration of how to participate in traditional fundraising, academic, and government structures while prioritizing community self-determination.
2023-present: Peacekeeper Society, Yakama Indian Reservation | We will support the Paaxamit Design School, which preserves Indigenous culture in service of physical and mental health
2022-2023: Lighthouse Foundation of Chicagoland, Chicago, IL | Our collaboration focuses on research toward workplace equity for Black Queer employees and board members in healthcare
2023-present: SEIINAC, Hidalgo, Mexico | We will partner to expand reproductive rights and access to safe abortion (now decriminalized) in rural and Indigenous communities across Mexico
What’s next? Minga's founders have brought on a new generation of board members ready to advance community power, health equity, and well-being for years to come.
Reflections from the Board I remember sitting in a circle with women in their villages in Kamuli Province, Uganda, hearing them describe how our project gave them both income and independence. They saved money from their gardens and were able to start their own microbusinesses and send their children to school consistently. It’s evidence that when you put money and decision-making power in the hands of women, the benefits for the community multiply through the generations. Rhianon Liu, Acting Board President, is a palliative care physician working in Portland, Maine with training from Johns Hopkins, Sutter Santa Rosa, and Scripps/UCSD.
I remember the Women’s Day March in 2008, when Jessica, Erin, Jessica’s mom, my mom and other FHN partners, friends, and health center volunteers gathered in Ecuador to celebrate International Women’s Day. With a long procession through the central villages, a number of skits, and other community events, local men, women, and volunteers united to celebrate the ways in which women in the region had shifted the discourse on gender violence and women’s rights. Karin Friederic, Co-founder and Board Member, is an Associate Professor of Cultural and Applied Anthropology at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
Through Minga, I've learned ways to think critically, to be patient, to communicate effectively, to build sustainable, mutually respectful partnerships, to lead, and to demonstrate humility, humility, humility. I feel so grateful to have been able to have applied those lessons in my personal and professional life. [This] work continues to mean as much to me as when Minga first began.
Jessica Backman-Levy, Co-founder and Board Member, is an Associate Professor of Practice at Washington University in St. Louis and a Senior Associate at Iris Group.
I remember walking through the Ecuadorean cloudforest with Karin. Along these muddy roads or trails, you invariably come across someone who remembers Karin or Jessica or Erin from 15 years ago, and who says, "you organized that health brigade where my children got vaccinated," or, "I remember you helped deliver my baby sister." It’s incredible that these basic services, and the community empowerment that Minga nurtured, continue to have such a big impact on people's lives. Brian Burke, Board Treasurer, is an applied cultural anthropologist who studies how communities mobilize to address environmental and economic issues.
I remember seeing NAYO grow and pivot their services based on their community's needs. Their youth radio program became so successful they were given free airtime by providers, offered TV spaces. They were really popular among their key target audiences and sharing really important information. They knew a radio program would be a good way to reach people, even though we were skeptical; it emphasized the importance of having projects be partner-led. Megan Snair, Board Secretary, is a public health consultant and writer for SGNL Solutions, working on global health security, emergency preparedness, and health policy.
I remember visiting our KEEP project site in Malawi in 2012 and meeting some of the high school girls who we were supporting through scholarships. The look on the students’ faces when they saw the large number of new books available to them at their school was unforgettable. It’s amazing how much a little investment in a community can grow into something transformative. The grants we give are small but our partners are able to achieve so much. Erin Lund, Board Member, is a Family Medicine and Addiction Medicine physician practicing and teaching in a community health clinic in Santa Rosa, California.
I felt passionately about the foundational, paradigm-shifting work we were attempting to do with our partner LUWODEA in the area of menstrual health for girls in Uganda, also including educating boys. Though it was disheartening to discontinue this partnership, I was heartened by how we managed it with respect and transparency. I appreciate the risks that we take in going off the beaten path by working to strengthen and empower small, community-based organizations. Piku Patnaik, Board Member, has worked as an infectious disease epidemiologist on global health research and programs across 14 countries.
When I attended my first Minga board meeting in St. Louis, I knew that I had found a group of people who shared the same values and vision of helping to improve this world. No matter how small the change, Minga felt like every donation and every dollar would be used thoughtfully. I carry this conscientious approach not only with my work with our partners, but in my every day life and clinical work. Ryan Shields, Board Member, has his M.D. from the Johns Hopkins and practices as a generalist OB/GYN in Honolulu and Waimea, Hawai'i.
I remember working with NAYO to set up a successful radio program that ended up having international reach, and hearing from NAYO that a proposal we put together for menstrual hygiene management was a finalist for a USAID grant. [I've learned that] change doesn’t always happen in the way we expect or according to our ideal timeline, and small communities can have outsized impacts when we create the appropriate conditions. Brennan Keiser, Board Member, is a Research Coordinator at the University of Washington conducting practice-based research in primary care.
2023 Financial Snapshot
$27,257
164
IN DONATIONS, EXCEEDING OUR GOAL
INDIVIDUAL DONORS
$18,000
237
$2,000
$750
LARGEST SINGLE GIFT RECEIVED
IN MONTHLY RECURRING GIFTS
$1,500
$7,200
DISBURSED TO PARTNERS FOR DIRECT CLIENT SERVICES
LARGEST TRIBUTE GIFT IN HONOR OF JARED HESTETUNE
UNIQUE GIFTS
TOTAL LABOR COSTS
Thank You, Donors!
$1000+
$500-999
Brian Burke and Karin Friederic Klaus Friederic Jim and Barbara Hestetune in memory of Jared Hestetune Erin Lund Nick and Angie Lunde Shannon Lyons Jean Suh
Paul Backman-Levy Lilian Friederic Pendred Noyce Anthony Shields Julie Titus McVeety Goldwarg Donor Advised-Fund Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation
$250-499
$100-$249
Sydney Blume Robert Burke Lauren Carruth Vinci Daro Mark Dombrowski Shawn Escoffery Whitney Fry Stephen Kaagan Brennan Keiser Gary and Colleen Reeve Elizabeth Levy Valery Lippens Rhianon Liu Sarah Levine Meyer Rosemary Spellacy
Soumya Alva Joseph Baylin Ben Brown Michael Burke Cassandra Cabral Elizabeth Cartwright Michiko Chand Erin Dean David Edison Norma Farrow Peter Fischler Tico Fordcross Janet Graham Margaret Greene Geeta Gupta Katherine Harripersaud MaryBeth Hastings Lucia Henney Nikhil Jiwrajka Gudrun Juffer Mark Kuhnke
Peter Leone Barbara Levy Jessica Levy Sarah Low Peter Lunde Dilshad Marolia Bev Moe Reshma Naik Camille Parsons Padmaja Patnaik Sunil Rao Prithijit Ray Lauren Shields Leland Shields Samantha St.Laurent Karen Suva Angela Thrasher Aniket Ullal Liza Grote Weiss Thespina Yamanis
332 Buena Vista Drive Santa Rosa, CA 95404 EIN/Tax ID: 11-3704324 www.mingafoundation.org
The Minga Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to improving the health of families and communities by catalyzing sustainable, locally-driven work.