The Women’s Equality Center is an advocacy “pop-up” campaign of the left-of-center New Venture Fund that advances left-of-center abortion and contraception policy positions in the U.S. and Latin America.

Organizational Overview

The Women’s Equality Center provides strategic communications and campaign support to left-of-center reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations at all levels in the U.S. and Latin America. ¹

The Women’s Equality Center (WEC) is a left-of-center “pop up” project of the New Venture Fund (NVF), a left-of-center fiscal sponsorship and pass-through funding group managed by liberal philanthropic consultancy Arabella Advisors; NVF paid Arabella who received $18 million for services in 2017. The New Venture Fund and Arabella Advisors have often been cited as “dark money” organizations. ²³

WEC’s website is a single page site that is typical of a “fiscally sponsored project” created by NVF. Designed to look as if it were a “grassroots organization” it is in reality a project of the well-connected NVF to support abortion and contraception provisions in the Obamacare health care law. ⁴

Limited information is available relating to the Women’s Equality Center project funding; it was the beneficiary of a William and Flora Hewlett Foundation one-time grant to NVF of $400,000 for the WEC’s Keep Birth Control Copay Free project. ⁵

Keep Birth Control Copay Free was created ostensibly as an outgrowth of WEC in response to the proposals to repeal an Obamacare mandate that forced companies to provide birth control at no cost to their employees. The movement appears inactive today as its website has not had recent updates and its Facebook page has not had a new post since September of 2018. ⁶

Leadership

Dionne Scott is director of U.S. initiatives and previously served as director of communications operations at the Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion advocacy group. ⁷

Paula Avila Guillen is director of Latin America Initiatives and previously served as Programs Specialist at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She leads a Latin America team in the creation of policy and strategic communications. ⁸

1. “Associate Director, Media.” Idealist. Accessed March 24, 2020. https://www.idealist.org/en/nonprofit-job/ae5b64cdad3a4ff69b0a38233edfc1e6-associate-director-media-womens-equality-center-a-project-of-the-new-venture-fund-washington.
2. “Associate Director, Media.” Idealist. Accessed March 24, 2020. https://www.idealist.org/en/nonprofit-job/ae5b64cdad3a4ff69b0a38233edfc1e6-associate-director-media-womens-equality-center-a-project-of-the-new-venture-fund-washington.
3. Shaw, Adam. “’Shadowy’ Dark Money Network behind Left-Wing Causes Exposed in New Report.” Fox News. FOX News Network, April 17, 2019. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dark-money-network-left-wing
4. “The Women’s Equality Center.” The Women’s Equality Center. Accessed March 24, 2020. https://www.womensequalitycenter.org/.
5. Nov 18, 2019 $50, 2020 $50 Feb 27, and 2019 $30 Oct 7. “New Venture Fund – for a Contraceptive Consumer Advocacy Campaign by the Women’s Equality Center.” Hewlett Foundation, October 20, 2017. https://hewlett.org/grants/new-venture-fund-for-a-contraceptive-consumer-advocacy-campaign-by-the-womens-equality-center/.
6. “On Control. In Control.” Keep Birth Control Copay Free. Accessed March 24, 2020. http://keepbcfree.com/. 
7. Scott, Dionne. Linkedin. Accessed March 24, 2020.https://www.linkedin.com/in/dionne-scott-017918a/
8. Guillen, Paula Avila. Linkedin. Accessed March 24, 2020.https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-avila-guillen-2939a58/