Background reading:

• Ms. x Groundswell
• LISTEN: “On the Issues: June Medical and the Future of U.S. Abortion Rights (with Yamani Hernandez, Nancy Northup, Kathaleen Pittman and Mary Ziegler)” (Jul. 28, 2020)
• “Everyone Loves Someone Who Had an Abortion: The Ms. Q&A with Eveline Shen and Yamani Hernandez” — Charmaine Lang (Jan. 27, 2020) 

Transcript:

00:00:00 Michele Goodwin:

Welcome to 15 minutes of feminism, part of our On the Issues with Michele Goodwin at Ms. Magazine platform. As you know, we report, rebel, and we tell it just like it is. And on 15 minutes of feminism we count the minutes in our own feminist terms. And in this episode, we’re bringing back a fan favorite Yamani Yansá Hernandez, who’s the chief executive officer of the Groundswell Fund for a new partnership between our women in Democracy platform and this amazing thought leadership that’s coming out of the Groundswell Fund.

Now let me tell you a little bit about Yamani. I know so many of you already remember her from being on our show talking about reproductive justice. Well, in this capacity we’re bringing out that civil society leadership that she has been honoring and developing since she was a teenager. Yamani is a visionary and transformative leader from the midwest committed to the balance of rigor and compassion, and she’s been working in the nonprofit space since she was 16 years old and doing that at the neighborhood level, city level, national and international levels.This has led her to the Groundswell Fund, which has funded nearly 200 million dollars for grassroots, organizing for reproductive and gender justice led by women and gender expansive people of color. We’re so delighted to have her back on our show. Sit back and take a listen.

Yamani, it’s such a pleasure to be back with you again. It’s always, you’re a fan favorite of our community. Let me just say that. You’re a fan favorite, also, amongst our producers, and I’m a favorite, you know. 

So, we’re back together again, and I’d love it if you could fill in for our listeners, this move that you’ve made, and the new position that you hold. 

00:00:30 Yamani Hernandez: 

Thank you. Those are super mutual feelings. So I’m also happy to be back and happy to be talking to you. 

I am at Groundswell Fund, and I started as an interim, and now I am the CEO of Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Action Fund. And I came from being a grantee of Groundswell Fund to the other side of the table and philanthropy.

00:00:57 Michele Goodwin:

So that’s quite a shift, isn’t it, going from, on one hand, being a person who is, and in a position as a leader, seeking resources from a fund, and that work, hoping that they understand, and hear your message, to now, being the person who has to listen to the messages. So, tell us a bit about what the Groundswell Fund does, and who are some of the typical grantees.

00:01:32 Yamani Hernandez:

Yeah, so Groundswell is 20 years old, and I’m following a 17-year founder of Groundswell Fund, and we fund reproductive justice, gender justice, and racial justice. 

It’s really, I think we’re most known for funding, grassroots organizing, within reproductive justice, but through this intersectional lens that make sure to look at economic justice, racial justice, birth justice, all of the the kind of intersections of what reproductive justice means. 

We have 250 grantees across the country, and we primarily fund in the South and the Midwest. In addition to our grant making, which in its 20-year history, we’ve given away about $200 million, and that’s like $100 million just in this last five years. We’re kind of closing out our, we call it a blueprint, which is like our five-year strategic plan. And it’s really, I mean, I was thrilled to…

When I left the National Network of Abortion Funds, I said I would never be in leadership again. I went to doing some coaching behind the scenes, and when this opportunity presented itself, it’s pretty much the only thing I would say, yes, to at the time, because Groundswell had supported my leadership, and two statewide, two organizations, one a statewide, and national organization, for for most of my career. So, I’m excited to be be here.

00:03:11 Michele Goodwin:

Let me remind our listeners, just how impactful your work has been. So, prior to Groundswell, you served as a partner at The Management Center, coaching some of the most critical leaders of our time. And prior to that, you were the first black executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which is the membership technical assistance and advocacy organization for about 100 grassroots organizations, funding abortion, and building culture and political power, which also means that you have had such a dynamic reach, and on a personal level, I’d be curious to hear from you, what that feels like knowing that you have touched so many organizations across the country, that work within the reproductive justice space.

00:04:09 Yamani Hernandez:

Thank you so much. 

It’s honestly been my deepest honor to work with so many organizations, and really to represent, I think the thing about the network and the abortion funding space is, you know, getting to be a spokesperson for abortion funds, a national spokesperson, and being an advocate for abortion funds, and I would say mutual aid organizing more broadly, and how political that is, really was the honor of my lifetime.

I think it’s the biggest, best thing I’ve ever done, you know, up there with raising my children that, you know. That was sort of my baby, as well. Like I got to really grow that organization, and the network, and I think a part of what I was trying to do there was get people to see abortion funding as more than charity work, and really see it as the political act that it is. When the when the country is refusing to to actually pay for abortion, you know, with the Hyde Amendment, or really trying to make abortion impossible, you know, the folks that are actually making abortion possible, which is the abortion funders, and the people who, and the providers like, that’s, to me, revolutionary work, and I was just really proud to be a part of it, let alone be in a leadership role. And then, in this role, I am deeply excited to be able to resource some of that work more.

00:05:46 Michele Goodwin:

I’d like to tie this even more closely to Ms Magazine, Ms Studios, and the collaborative work that’s launching forward. So, back in 2021 Ms added a Dedicated Women in Democracy Platform. We did so really, knowing that women’s position in society, women’s rights are really under threat. Had been under threat during the prior Trump administration, and to be honest, there’s been a serious question about women’s citizenship that has existed since the founding of this country. 

There’s still the march towards, even in Democratic administrations, where still, there was imparity of women on courts compared to male counterparts, parity within Congress compared to men. I mean, we still are not there in fundamental ways. Pay gaps are extreme. And then, when you layer race onto it, as well, there’s a serious question about whether this country really appreciates women’s citizenship altogether, you know. 

And in light of the current administration, too, it’s glaringly obvious that there is serious work to be done. So, our work at Ms was to connect the dots between the attacks on democracy, and the rise of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, in the United States, to really see that women have a stake in thinking about democracy, and that women of color have a stake in thinking about democracy, and such, that people could really come to understand even, how black women vote as a matter of how they understand democracy and constitutionalism, which is something that is overlooked. 

You know, nobody bothers to say, well, why is it, in such high concentrated numbers, have black women voted in these different kinds of patterns? What does that say about what they know about constitutionalism? 

So, here we are joining up with Groundswell, and I’m wondering what you think then about women in democracy and the project launching forward?

00:07:51 Yamani Hernandez:

Yeah, I’m really excited about this partnership with Ms Magazine, and then, specifically the toolkit that was created around gender and democracy that we got to be a part of.

I think that there’s all this buzz around democracy funding, and democracy, more broadly, and it’s really interesting to see how things get, kind of, separated out into like who’s democracy and who’s not. And we have been doing, what we think is democracy work, for the entire time that we’ve existed. And you know, funding women of color leadership, and gender expansive people of color in their leadership, in their integrated voter engagement work, their grassroots organizing, training folks up, you know, centering power, and policy change in the South and the Midwest have been hallmarks of our work at Groundswell. 

I think what I really appreciate about this, the partnership, is like really lifting up that there is no democracy without gender equality. Like, you know, if you cannot determine your gender, if you cannot, if you don’t have equal rights in your gender, your sex and gender, how can you be an equal participant in democracy? How can democracy even exist is sort of like an antithesis to be oppressing people based on sex and gender, and claiming to be a democracy? 

So I, you know, look forward to opportunities to continue to lift up, not just our work, but other examples, especially of our partners, our grantee partners, in the South and the Midwest, and just really try to be an echo chamber of that liberatory work, and I think that that is, you know, in this sort of rise of fascism, you know, it’s just really necessary to, you know, continue to be loud. Continue to provide examples of resistance, and what actual democracy, what a multiracial feminist democracy, you know, should look like.

00:10:09 Michele Goodwin:

What might you hope for your grantees in working through this collaboration? Because it strikes me that there’s such a tremendous need for narrative in these times.

When I think about a Project 2025, it strikes me as a narrative project. When I think about the film Birth of a Nation, it’s a narrative project. It seems to me that we’ve been in a multi century loop of narrative that has been demeaning of people of color, demeaning of people who are immigrants, but certain kinds of immigrants, not all immigrants, demeaning of women. And so, certainly, I think that narrative is truly important. And if you could just give me a moment, before I let you go, in terms of how you think that narrative, and narrative with regard to democracy, can help to create a new vision of democracy, and perhaps, even what that might mean for your grantees.

00:11:11 Yamani Hernandez:

Yeah, I think it’s really just, you know, as somebody new to the philanthropy space, and also new to what people traditionally call democracy work, which I have perceived as a very like bro, like white-bro-culture type of thing. 

00:11:30 Michele Goodwin:

It is very bro, isn’t it, right? Because people thought that what was before was democracy, and that wasn’t great.

00:11:37 Yamani Hernandez:

Yeah. So, but I’m like the work of Fannie Lou Hamer, who like that, that’s democracy work, you know. Like I think about our people in, you know, in Alabama, like some of our grantees, and some of our partners, that have been very loud and vocal, you know, very loud black women leaders, that I’m just like, in terms of narrative, they need to just be speaking on their own. Like, I don’t need to speak for them. 

Like, you know, I really just want to elevate the voices of folks that are on the ground who can talk about what this work really looks like, and you know, who’s impacted, and how they facilitate participation and democracy. And those people need to be placed at the same level as the white electoral bro people who are, like, being pundits, and you know, saying, what you know, saying, what the…

You know, I get into these conversations where people are like, well, how much is it going to take, you know, to, like, win this election? Or you know, like, I’m like, it’s not just the transaction. Like, you know, these are real people relationships. You know, they talk about, like the deep canvas. You know, that is something that you can’t just knock, you can’t just knock on a door for 15 minutes, and like, influence somebody. You know, you need to be in deep relationship with folks to help people understand and mobilize people in the ways that are transformative, that produce the multiracial, you know, democracy, that we want to be a part of. 

And the people who are doing that work are, yeah, they’re black and brown folks in the South, in the Midwest, where you know, they’ve experienced the most of, you know, repression and of voting rights. 

So, yeah.

00:13:27 Michele Goodwin:

I really appreciate your mentioning of Fannie Lou Hamer, and also, centering the voices of people who, otherwise, are typically rendered invisible, but they are doing the work of democracy, and have been, right. 

And as you mentioned, women in the South, I think about this often as attention is placed on founding fathers, who held two documents that, ultimately, were hollow and thin because those documents didn’t produce in those times, in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, or even early 1900s, true equality. But here comes, then, the work of a Fannie Lou Hamer. Here comes the work of black women who are marching in Montgomery, Alabama, saying that, no, we will go through the front door of this department store, or we will not give this department store our money. These black women who said, no, our children deserve the right to be able to walk in this park, to be able to swim in this pool. Black women who said, no, I shouldn’t have to guess how many bubbles on a bar of soap, or jelly beans in a jar, in order to be able to vote in 1964, in the United States. 

Those women, and you’re connecting it to those women and their voices, that they were always meaningful, always meaningful, with regard to our democracy. And moving forward, we’re going to be hearing from the myriad of those modern-day truth tellers through this important collaboration.

00:14:59 Yamani Hernandez:

Thank you. I’m thrilled to see where it goes.

00:15:04 Michele Goodwin:

Well, I’m glad that we are collaborating with you, and thank you, so very much, for your leadership in helping to make this happen. If I could just one last question, and that is, what’s your hope for the future?

00:15:20 Yamani Hernandez:

Oh, goodness, what a big question. 

00:15:25 Michele Goodwin: 

I know. It is. 

00:15:25 Yamani Hernandez:

Yeah. I mean, is that a hope for the country, for the work? 

00:15:33 Michele Goodwin: 

Yeah, it can be however you take it, because I know with whatever you will offer, we could sit at a retreat, and people could hear your wisdom over 48 or 72 hours. And this will be more like a minute, or two, but…

00:15:51 Yamani Hernandez:

Yeah, I’ll just say, you know, my hope is, and I don’t mean this to sound like, you know, not super inspiring, but my hope is our survival. I mean, I think that our survival is very political. And I think that the place that we are in American history is, you know, it can’t be underscored like how dire it is. 

And so, I think, my hope is to see people know their neighbors, for them to organize locally, you know, to see, you know, so that we can, we can, actually, reclaim some of the things that, you know, we’ve lost through some of the kind of like digital culture that, you know, the ways that our society has shifted. 

I don’t have anything. I’m a very digital, I’m not a super analog person, but this is something that I’m working on, and how I’m practicing my own hope for the future is like knowing my neighbors, getting like, very practical plans together, you know, growing food. You know, just making sure that I have resources, like within my own community, at my own hands. That, you know, when the when the government says that they deny me something, you know, that I still have a pathway. That my family and friends and neighbors still, you know, have a pathway, believe in pathways, that you know make life possible, and that, you know, I’m hopeful that we pass through that period, and we invent new ways of being, you know, and thriving, as we get through this difficult period ahead. 

00:17:31 Michele Goodwin:

Yamani, thank you, so very much, for spending time with me, and sharing such beautiful wisdom. Thank you, so much.