Common Ground | Issue 002

🌱 ROOT & GROUND

As I write this, I am on a month-long work trip. New Orleans, Philadelphia, and now Chicago, with Canada still ahead for the last leg of conferencing and time spent holding space with some remarkable people doing this work on both the birth worker and investor sides of the table.

The conversations on this trip have covered a lot of ground: abortion education, fundraising models, how to include community members in investing in organizations when they are not accredited investors, and the financialization of birthing spaces. What connects all of it is a shared understanding that community members deserve more than a seat at the table. They deserve a stake in what the table produces.

Two questions are sitting with me through all of it:

How do we have honest conversations with communities about what they know without taking more than we give, especially right now, when those same communities are losing funding faster than it can be replaced?

How do we talk about policy and organizing without also talking about capital, how it is actively shaping policy right now, and how we need to build financial power (that does not depend on philanthropy) to have a seat at the table? Philanthropy can be used to both expand and constrain our policy efforts if we are not clear about what comes with accepting philanthropic funds. That clarity is not optional. It is survival.

I do not have the answers yet. If you have some thoughts, please share.

In lighter news, I am missing my land deeply and very excited to announce that fifteen chickens are on their way to Gertrude Magnolia. We have Easter Eggers coming, which means green and blue eggs. Anyone interested? ✨

🌿 THE PLANT ALLY · Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata)

For slowing down wandering thoughts and resting the body in the process.

Passionflower is unmistakable. She blooms in deep purple with delicate filaments radiating from her center. Once you have seen her, you will always know who she is. In dried form, she is green and tan with spiral tendrils and a scent that is sweet, earthy, and floral all at once.

She has been used for centuries to calm the nervous system, support deep sleep, lower blood pressure, and ease pain. She is very good at all of it.

Passionflower is really that girl.

To drink her: loose-leaf or tea bag; add lemon balm if you have it; steep for 10 to 15 minutes in hot water; and let her do her thing. Nighty night. 🌙

A note from your neighborhood clinical herbalist in training: use caution if you take sleep aids, antidepressants, heart medications, or if you are pregnant. She is powerful and plays well with very little. When in doubt, check with your care provider first.

💡 THE GROUND TRUTH

The first time I understood that money and reproductive justice were connected, I was sitting in a jail.

As a volunteer doula with the Prison Birth Project in Massachusetts, I watched pregnant incarcerated people treated as liabilities the moment their bodies started growing life. That experience gave me something I have never been able to unsee: capitalism and reproductive justice have always been directly connected. Keeping those two conversations separate is not an oversight. It is a design.

Reproductive justice was named in 1994 by twelve Black women who understood what mainstream feminism kept missing. Safe housing, food access, transportation, and healthcare are not add-ons to reproductive rights. They are reproductive rights.

Capitalism has always decided who gets to bring life into the world, under what conditions, and who absorbs the cost. The numbers make that plain. Black women die in childbirth at two to three times the rate of white women, regardless of income or education. Granny midwives once attended nearly 90% of Black births. Today, Black midwives make up 2% to 7% of the total midwifery workforce. These are not separate facts; they are the same story.

The full essay traces exactly how that story was built and what it means for every funding decision being made in perinatal health right now.

Missed the last blog? Read it here: ground-work-1.ghost.io

📋 THE PRACTICAL

For birth workers and doulas:

Look up the policies directly shaping your work right now, from Medicaid reimbursement rates in your state to hospital policies affecting your clients. Then apply the power analysis lens. Who made these decisions? What are their interests? Are those interests aligned with community needs or with something else entirely? The answers are usually easy to find and almost always illuminating. Start putting the puzzle together and share what you find.

For investors and capital allocators:

Look up the policies that govern who can and cannot invest, including whether community members can invest in the organizations that serve them. Analyze the power structure behind those policies. Then ask the harder questions: how do these policies impact you as an investor, and more importantly, as a person living inside the same systems you are funding? How do they impact the people in the communities you are investing in, people who have real buy-in, real stakes, and real knowledge, but not enough power or privilege to be heard in the rooms where decisions get made? Their absence from those rooms is not an accident. It is a policy choice. That is worth sitting with.

We learn faster together. Share what you find in the Common Ground Instagram channel or reply to this email.

✨ THE ENERGETIC READ

This week, I sat at my altar (I travel with a mini altar 💛) and something came through clearly. It was time to be bold and ask the person I needed to ask directly about something I really want. I will share more in a future issue.

So, I did the thing. I reached out directly and asked. The answer was not exactly what I hoped for, but it opened a door to another possibility I had not considered. One I am sitting with now and feeling hopeful about.

The collective energy right now is asking us to stop hinting and start asking. Not to be subtle, not to soften the ask until it is unrecognizable, but to be clear about what we want and open to how the answer arrives.

Maybe you want to be held. Maybe you want a promotion. Maybe you want a conversation you have been putting off. Maybe you want something you have not said out loud yet, even to yourself.

This is the season for it. Ask the question. Trust that the answer, whether it is exactly what you wanted to hear or something else entirely, is moving you toward what is already yours.

🔗 WHAT’S MOVING

Monetary policy shapes who gets access to capital, at what cost, and under what conditions. Understanding how it works is not optional for anyone building or funding care economy work right now. The Council on Foreign Relations has a solid primer worth bookmarking. cfr.org/learn/learning-journey/monetary-policy-introduction/what-is-monetary-policy

The World Economic Forum released new data on women’s health in numbers for 2026. The gaps are significant, and the statistics are worth having in your back pocket for every funding conversation you enter this year. weforum.org/stories/2026/05/womens-health-in-numbers

Orchid Capital founder Tenesha Duncan sits down with the Found Free podcast for a real conversation about financing community and justice-led organizations. She covers where to find funding sources, how to set clear boundaries with funders, and how to build an organization whose mission outlasts its founder. If you are in birth work or reproductive justice and have never had a frank conversation about money in these spaces, start here. youtube.com/watch?v=nLVK3UzSNFQ

🤝 THE INTRODUCTION

As the incoming Chief Strategy Officer at Orchid Capital Collective, I want to bring this issue to the table.

We invest in ecosystems where reproductive care, economy, and community meet. Our work sits at the exact intersection Ground Work exists to bridge: moving capital toward the practitioners, organizations, and infrastructure that reproductive health and community care depend on.

Orchid is also building pathways for people closest to the work to have a seat in the rooms where capital decisions get made. That includes you.

Whether you are a founder building in the care economy, a practitioner trying to understand funding, or an investor looking to deploy capital with a framework that goes beyond standard metrics, Orchid is a conversation worth having.

Learn more and connect at orchidcapital.fund

🕯️ THE DISCERNMENT

Before we can get too bold, some of us need to start somewhere earlier. It is hard to ask for what you want if asking for what you need has not yet become a practice. For some of you, that relationship with your own needs has not yet been built. That is not a failure. It is a starting place.

Get comfortable. Create an environment that gives you ease. Then sit with this question: what do I need?

Let the answers come without judgment. Then go a level deeper. Ask yourself: what else do I need?

Write it down. Be with what surfaces. This week, the practice is simple: ask for one need. Notice what it feels like to give yourself permission to be resourced.

We can do this work and still have needs and wants. We cannot pour from empty. Asking is how we fill.

In lineage and in work,

Sabia

Herbalist · Reiki Master · Spiritual Director · Founder, BADT · Chief Strategy Officer, Orchid Capital

Ground Work publishes every other Tuesday. Forward this to someone who needs it. Subscribe at ground-work-1.ghost.io