Mission, Goals, & Strategies

• In Our Own Voice is the only network of organizations that are led by Black women and focused on Black women, offering an amplified collective voice advocating for Reproductive Justice.
• Our lived experience and trust of the communities on whose behalf we fight every day gives us unique perspectives and contributions. That matters. It is at the heart of the difference we make.

In Our Own Voice’s foundation builds on three overarching priorities, which are the means by which we propel our mission and achieve our vision:

Advocacy and Policy Change: In Our Own Voice works with its organizational partners to impact policies at the national, state and local levels. We educate policy makers and advocate for proactive policies on reproductive health, housing, environment, policing, LGBTQIA+ liberation, immigration, disability, food security and research that impact the health and well-being of Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people.

Leadership Development: In Our Own Voice works with Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals including the leaders, board members, staff and activists of our partner organizations to provide media and messaging training on various issues so they can serve as spokespeople within their communities to promote policy and cultural change at the local, state, regional and national levels through advocacy, narrative-shifting, community mobilization, and movement building. Additionally, we designed the Next Generation Leadership Institute to develop students’ leadership skills and provide them with training in advocacy, community organizing, and media readiness.

Movement-Building: In Our Own Voice is building a movement of Black women intent on changing our reproductive health outcomes. Because of the important role our organizational partners play in the activism of Black communities, our movement-building is centered on building their outreach capacity and infrastructure. We know that real movement-building starts with understanding the lived experience of the women we are mobilizing and ensuring that their voices are incorporated into our work.

We seek to align and mobilize In Our Own Voice’s resources and influence to advance a movement grounded in human rights that ensures Reproductive Justice for all Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people.

Reproductive Justice is the right to decide if, when, and how we have families and—if we choose to do so—to be able to do so in safe, sustainable, and supportive environments. It is also the right to sexual expression and enjoyment without procreation. These tenets articulate the obligations of governments and society to ensure conditions exist so that every individual can realize these RJ values. 

To achieve our overarching priorities, In Our Own Voice has four strategic imperatives that allow us to focus on accelerating our impact and reach:

1. Champion Reproductive Justice 
2. Empower a nationwide Black RJ Partnership Network  
3. Increase In Our Own Voice’s Role as the go-to RJ organization 
4. Strengthen Organizational Infrastructure and Capacity to Enact Transformational Change

In Our Own Voice has worked to advance Reproductive Justice since our inception in 2014. Our strategy sets out a familiar path but in a new direction in a society undergoing profound change. We hope you will travel this road with us. Let’s come together to bring a collective voice to the advancement of the Black Reproductive Justice movement.