Local abortion funds have seen an influx of donations to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June.

The D.C. Abortion Fund has received $313,000, compared to $892,376 for all of 2020. The organization noted that 80% of these contributions and grants are going to abortion services. “To date, we have never turned away a single person who was eligible for DCAF funding,” D.C. Abortion Fund states on their website. The majority of the fund’s donations come from individuals, but many local businesses have held fundraisers to help support the organization, including establishments like Showtime, Electric Cool-Aid, Donut Run, and Ivy and Coney to name a few. 

Lynn McCann from the Baltimore Abortion Fund shared via email that the organization has raised over $150,000 since Roe v. Wade was overturned, compared to the $250,000 in financial and logistical support they were able to provide in 2021. To adequately meet anticipated demand, their aspirational budget is between six and eight million dollars. She expressed hope for support not just from the public, but from private philanthropists as well.

The Blue Ridge Abortion Fund in Virginia told DCist/WAM via email that they had received $175,000 in the week after the SCOTUS decision, a significant bump compared to the $676,697 raised throughout 2019.

But the spike in giving isn’t easing concerns for many of the organizations. Unlike the D.C. Abortion Fund, both Blue Ridge and Baltimore Abortion Funds typically have a tougher time meeting the day-to-day demand of eligible patients in their region.

Each abortion fund provides a helpline with case workers where callers can confidentially request partial financial assistance for care. Some of them also provide logistical support, including transportation and child care.

Abortions are still legal in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia – but even before the Dobbs decision, cost barriers hindered many abortion patients from receiving care. According to McCann from the Baltimore Abortion Fund, first-trimester abortions can cost $500, second-trimester procedures are around $3,500, and later stage procedures can cost up to $10,000. These costs don’t account for transportation, child care, or unpaid time off for patients, McCann says.

With these kinds of costs and a likely influx of patients from surrounding southern states where abortion is expected to be severely restricted, McCann is worried the money that’s been pouring in won’t prove to be enough. 

Organizations in Virginia have similar concerns.

“We have more requests for support than we have financial resources. And that has been consistent,” says Tannis Fuller, the executive director of the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund “And while we have seen what we call sort of a spike in rage donations over the past month, the money that we have raised is effectively like two months of budget, maybe.”

To meet the needs of all of their patients, Blue Ridge anticipates needing a $2 million budget. 

With millions of dollars needed to meet the demand, McCann shared her hope that more public and private philanthropists will target donations to abortion funds.

However, organizers say that many new individual donors within the community have signed on to make recurring contributions, which could bolster the area’s abortion funds over the longer term as they brace for increased need.

“So one of the great things that has happened … is that we have had a significant increase in the number of folks who have started monthly donations with us,” Fuller says. “If we can know that we have somewhere between five and 10, or five and 15 … thousand dollars of donations coming in in a month, we can regularly plan how much money we have available to our callers.”

The Baltimore Abortion Fund, too, is hopeful that recurring donations will help ease the burdens they’ve faced in helping callers. 

“Some weeks we run out of money before the end of the week and we have to shut down our helpline, and we cannot continue to provide financial support for people,” McCann says. “We have been really fortunate that because of our increased organizational capacity, increased fundraising, we’re at the point now where we are consistently spending 98 to 100% of available funds every week, but still have been able to support almost everyone who’s called our helpline.”

Organizers hope that the passion and political will that has been driving donations in the wake of the SCOTUS decision will continue. McCann emphasizes, “It is so crucial that we have support not just in the moment, but in order to continue our movement for reproductive justice.”