Mission

The Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to midwifery in North America through education, research and public policy.

Consistent independent research shows that expanding the midwives model of care in North America improves maternal and infant health outcomes, reduces unnecessary and costly medical interventions, and increases patient satisfaction.

FAM receives its support from foundations and individuals who embrace the midwives model of care.

FAM Board members: (Front Row) Maggie Bennett, Priya Morganstern, Linda McHale (Back Row) Marie Meakin, BJ Mackinnon, Michelle Medlin, Sherry DeVries, Karen Webster

History

The Foundation For the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM) was formed in 1998 with the original purpose of providing a 501(c) 3 organization for interested individuals to donate to projects of The Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA). Very quickly, however, FAM developed its own identity as an organization with a broad vision of what is needed to advance midwifery in the United States through research, education, and public policy.

FAM has granted more than $250,000 to more than 20 programs after its first grant in 2003. Program areas that have been funded include critical research on the midwifery model of care and training programs for those serving vulnerable populations of birthing women. See [ Projects Funded ] for more information.

The FAM board consists of eight volunteer members, five midwives and three consumers. In 2009, the FAM board hired Robin Hutson, Executive Director, to continue the growth of the foundation’s program support and meet the increased funding demands for midwifery education and public policy. In 2010, FAM joined the Women’s Funding Network, a consortium of global women’s funds to identify larger partnerships within women’s philanthropy for improving childbirth for women.

Our Board

Maggie Bennett

Maggie Bennett is an artist as well as a midwife. She began her midwifery career in 1975, overlapping her study and practice of midwifery with her teaching career. She has a private homebirth practice in Monterey, CA and has trained several practicing midwives.

Maggie has been active in midwifery politics on the local, state, and national levels for more than thirty years. She was the Chairwoman of California Association of Midwives when that state passed legislation to license midwives. She has served several terms on the Board of Directors of the Midwives Alliance of North America, and has been honored with the Sage Femme, the highest accolade MANA bestows for her participation, wisdom, and vision for midwifery.

Maggie brings to the FAM Board her creativity, expertise in policy-making, and her enthusiasm for the future of midwifery care in the U.S. Maggie received her BFA from the University of Illinois, has two children, and lives in Seaside, California.

Sherry DeVries

Sherry DeVries, CPM, LM, CNM is a midwife, mother, midwifery educator and birth activist. Sherry has been attending homebirths since the mid 1980s. She currently serves on the Midwives Alliance Board of Directors as the Region 4 representative.

Sherry is currently teaching and developing a one of a kind Direct Entry Midwife program at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College in Wisconsin for the purpose of educating new and aspiring midwives.

Sherry has four children and lives in Fennimore, Wisconsin.

Laurie Foster

Laurie Foster CNM, MS has been a midwife for thirty years, and is driven by a passion to give all women the opportunity to have a joyful, transforming pregnancy and birth experience. She believes pregnancy and birth are the gateway to motherhood and that healthy mothering is an essential foundation of society. This passion and belief fuel her enthusiasm for FAM’s mission.

She has worked for much of her career as a homebirth midwife, but also in birthing centers both in and out of the hospital. She has been a faculty member of the Northeast classroom of SMS (Seattle Midwifery School), and has served as preceptor for students from both SMS and Frontier School of Midwifery. She has worked extensively in midwifery organizations in both Vermont and New Hampshire, having served for many years on the State of NH Midwifery Advisory Board and worked tirelessly on licensing for CPMs in VT.

She is a proud MANA member since the organization’s birth. She is married, has three home-born children and lives on a small farm in Sharon, Vermont.

BJ Mackinnon

BJ Mackinnon, CPM, CNM, MS, serves the foundation board in the capacity of dreamer – “If we can dream it, we can do it!“ Foundation work inspires her. She thrives on granting money to the projects that support the midwifery model of care.

Her expertise comes from years of organizational work through the Midwives Alliance of North America, her state midwifery organizations, and avid personal enthusiasm.

BJ has been a midwife since 1982 and became involved in fundraising and grant making due to her interests and satisfaction in seeing every dollar count in relation to the midwifery model of care. BJ is married with four children and two home-schooled grandchildren and lives on her vineyard in Brimfield, MA.

Marie Meakin

Marie Meakin, RN, BSN, CD, CBE, has been working as a nurse in Maternal–Child Health since 1989. She has been involved in legislation to change healthcare policy as well as fundraising.

Since joining the crusade to change maternity care in 2001, she owned her own childbirth education and doula business, taught nursing students in obstetrics, and has experienced birth at home and hospital.

Marie brings a passion for change and a consumer-oriented focus to the Foundation with a special interest in creative fundraising. Marie is married with two children and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Priya Morganstern

Priya Morganstern, J.D., specializes in the law of tax-exempt organizations. She has been involved in women’s health and midwifery education and advocacy since 1982 as a founding member of Long Island (NY) Childbirth Alternatives and the Massachusetts Friends of Midwives, and later as president of Connecticut Friends of Midwives.

She taught medical students for a number of years as part of a woman–run gynecological teaching program and was a contributing editor of “The Whole Birth Catalog” published in 1983.

Priya currently directs the Pro Bono Partnership, Inc., a legal aid program based in Hartford, CT that uses volunteer attorneys to provide free legal assistance to nonprofit organizations serving the public interest, and which is funded by local corporations, law firms, and foundations.

Priya also serves on the Board of the Connecticut Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and is a member of the Social Action Committee of her synagogue.

Priya is married with one daughter and lives in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Amber Olivieri

Amber Olivieri, C.P.A., earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Oregon and her CPA certificate in New Mexico.  Her career in public accounting gained her knowledge in various industries and entity types and also her husband!  In 2005, she opened her own accounting business assisting numerous small businesses. 

Amber’s appreciation for midwifery developed during her third pregnancy and first homebirth in 2009.  She joined the FAM board in 2010 to help spread the word about the midwifery model of care and to honor her midwife. 

Amber is married with three children and lives is Douglas, MA.

Karen Webster

Karen Webster, CPM, LM, has a home birth practice and has been involved in birth and women’s health since 1979. She served on the MANA Board of Directors as the Region 2 Representative for six years and is the MANA Regional Conference chair.

Karen is committed to “growing more midwives” and is a preceptor for both the National College of Midwifery & Birthwise Midwifery School.

Karen has worked actively on midwifery related legislation efforts in four states. She is a charter member of the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives and has been a MANA member since 1985.

She has been involved in the planning of at least nine midwifery conferences and brings her unique organizational skills to the FAM Board, along with her desire to make midwifery care accessible to all women.

Karen is married with eight children, and seven home–born grandchildren; she lives in Elkton, Maryland.

Robin Hutson

Robin Hutson [ Executive Director ] is passionate about FAM’s ability to support the midwifery movement: its infrastructure, its leaders, its strategic vision and impact.

Robin joined FAM in 2009 after fifteen years in the magazine publishing industry, serving as Publisher of The American Prospect, a nonprofit political magazine and website, and Publisher of Lingua Franca, the gadfly magazine for academics in the 1990’s.

During her pregnancy and prenatal care with Certified Professional Midwives and Certified Nurse Midwives, Robin planned to shift her career from nonprofit media to childbirth reform, specifically committed to midwifery solutions to disparities in U.S. birth outcomes.

Robin has volunteered for BOLD (Birth On Labor Day), the Massachusetts Friends of Midwives, the Massachusetts Coalition for Midwifery, and the Birth Network of Greater Boston.

She and her husband have one daughter born at home and live in Boston.