New Ibis Board Chair shares commitment to advancing racial justice and equity in our work
We are thrilled to share the news that Fatimah Gifford is the new Chair of Ibis’s Board of Directors. Fatimah has served on the Board since 2016 and leads Provide, an organization that partners with health and social service workers to reduce barriers to abortion and other stigmatized health care via training, support, and centering marginalized communities where there is demand and decreased access. Fatimah assumes the role of Chair from Dr. Thoai Ngo, who served as Chair for three years and will continue to serve as a board member. Thoai is the Vice President for Social and Behavioral Science Research at the Population Council, a research organization whose mission is to generate ideas, produce evidence, and design solutions to improve the lives of underserved populations around the world.
As the past and current Chair of Ibis’s Board, we’d like to share with Ibis’s colleagues, partners, current and future supporters, friends, and family members why we serve as leaders on the Board. We’d also like to highlight why this transition — and Ibis’s work to ensure its research and organizational policies and practices advance justice and equity around the world — are so important in this moment.
Ibis’s Board, like Ibis overall, is on a continuing journey to confront racism and dismantle white supremacy in our organization and our work. We both joined in 2016 aiming to build a non-profit board fit for the 21st century. While we are still figuring out what that means, we know we must be inclusive and draw on expertise from our community partners around the world who can help Ibis advance racial justice and equity (RJE) on a global scale. At our very first Board meeting, we were welcomed by a conversation about RJE with existing Board members, Ibis’s leadership and management team, and colleagues. During Ibis’s strategic planning work in 2018–2019, a collaborative process that gathered feedback from colleagues, Board, and partners, Ibis made several important infrastructural changes to embody our focus on justice and equity — including the removal of the word “woman” from the mission statement to be more inclusive of the perspectives and SRH needs of all people. As part of our dedicated work to advance RJE, Ibis also published a statement on principled partnerships and our commitment to conducting research with a human rights and reproductive justice lens in early 2020. In addition, this work has included efforts to improve our internal organizational policies, like hiring, with a focus on racial justice.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which further exacerbated gender, racial, economic, and social inequities, and increased global attention to the movement for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 urged us to work even harder to ensure our research and partnerships advance racial justice, our work environment is inclusive, and our organizational culture allows all staff to not only succeed, but thrive. We had a series of conversations with Ibis colleagues about the work environment we strive to build and developed a statement of community norms that Ibis staff, Board, partners, advisory board members, and vendors are asked to sign. We hold ourselves accountable to those norms and the continued expansion of the expertise and life experience represented on the Ibis Board.
As leaders at the Board level, we are committed to ensuring the Board includes members who come from and understand the communities and organizations most closely connected to those we partner with to advance sexual and reproductive autonomy, choices, and health around the world. Part of this approach is the continued training of Board members on different approaches to inclusivity, including a recent training on gender identities and inclusion. We also convene in-person and online conversations about racial and reproductive justice in the US and around the globe. We will continue to identify ways to collaborate and connect with staff in this work and ensure Ibis’s Board operates to the highest ethical standard.
We believe this work is central to Ibis’s success and recognize that we have much to do as we continue our work to advance racial justice on the Board, throughout the organization, and in Ibis’s research and project work. Some key learnings include:
1. Advancing racial and reproductive justice is core to Ibis’s mission, and it requires the Board, Ibis leadership, staff, and partners to have ongoing, open, and honest conversations with each other.
2. Individuals come to the Board with different language, understanding, and experience working to advance racial, gender, economic, and social justice. To meet everyone where they are, we need to carve out dedicated space for training and conversation among the Board.
3. During a time when racial and reproductive justice are political battlegrounds — and can be major stressors in our daily lives, especially for those of us with multiple marginalized social identities and/or those working to advance RJE — the Board needs to go beyond governance and strategic advice to engage directly with staff so that we can better respond to the organizational needs while adapting to the external environment.
4. It is important for the Board to include fresh leadership and perspectives, particularly those of our partners and the communities working to advance sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. As we face continuing attacks on our rights, changes in the ways we work, shifts in funding priorities, and broader economic stressors, we are lucky to have a dynamic Board of incredible experts, with new leadership and new members who can help us meet the challenges of this moment. In December 2022, we welcomed Regina Tamés, a human rights lawyer and women’s rights activist based in Mexico, and Dr. Jay Zussman, a third-year MD-PhD student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine studying ovarian development and the establishment of the ovarian reserve.
Under Fatimah’s leadership, we will continue this work and remain committed to implementing anti-racist practices and identifying and dismantling anti-Blackness and white supremacy in our work and in our organization.
“My values are rooted in race equity, inclusion, and justice. In this new role, my focus is on prioritizing support and leadership that will help Ibis navigate its global footprint and create impactful research and interventions that advance sexual and reproductive autonomy for all folks, especially the most vulnerable. Additionally, I hope to continue to attract future Board leadership that reflects the values, growth, and global communities Ibis serves.” — Fatimah Gifford
We are grateful for the expertise and support from all members on the Board. We thank Ibis President Kelly Blanchard and the Ibis Senior Management Team and colleagues for their leadership, passion, and commitment to increasing RJE through bold, rigorous research to advance sexual and reproductive autonomy, choices, and health for all.
In solidarity.
Fatimah and Thoai
PS: Please sign up for Ibis’s newsletter and donate here to support the exciting work we will accomplish with Fatimah as Chair of our Board.
