On a Mission to Bring Reproductive Healthcare to Rural America
Today I’m interviewing Caroline Weinberg, founder of Plan A, a nonprofit start-up bringing health care directly to underserved communities through mobile clinics, with an emphasis on improving sexual and reproductive health. Plan A’s goal is to serve all people, regardless of insurance status, income, or location, and ensure access to affordable, quality, and compassionate care. Their first mobile clinic will launch in 2021 and will serve the Mississippi Delta.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got here.
I’ve been working in the field of reproductive health for almost 20 years now. I started when I was a college student focusing on health education, and continued during my time in medical school, when getting my master’s in public health, mostly staying in that sphere. I’ve always focused on reproductive healthcare and access to underserved communities — I worked in the U.S. and internationally in Uganda and Guatemala, building and evaluating programs to make sure that everybody has access to the care that they need. I was working in the U.S. and watching the gradual restrictions on access to women’s healthcare that have been going on for decades, but seemed to be getting worse and worse as time went on, and I was growing increasingly frustrated. I sat down and did a mental inventory of my skillsets and knowledge and decided to channel my energy at building programs that would help increase access to care for women and focus my attention on rural communities, and ended up in the state of Mississippi.
I went down to Mississippi and met with people at the Department of Health and at different organizations, and pitched them the idea of mobile clinics and essentially said “do you think this would work in reality, or is it only something that kind of is going to pan out in my own head?” The people I met with were really enthusiastic and passionate about helping me get the program off the ground, so I’ve been working in Mississippi since 2018 and we’ll be opening our first mobile clinic in the Delta early next year.
Was there a particular experience that made you think “I need to do this now”?
Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. But I don’t think it was one thing as much as the culmination of many things. I had worked and been trained for the past 20 years in this field, and all of a sudden, it just coalesced into something… an ability to do something productive with my frustrations about the state of the world.
How did you overcome the fears of becoming a social entrepreneur?
When I was in medical school I was selected for the Reynold’s Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship at NYU, which focused on training students to understand what it meant to be an entrepreneur and work with other people who had similar goals. I think that my experience and training led me to have some of the confidence that was needed to become a social entrepreneur. I also was able to surround myself with very intelligent people who were passionate about the same things I was and were willing to lend their brains to help make my ideas a reality. I do think that that’s a big part of the reason why I was able to take this leap and do what I’m doing now. I am also lucky to have a personal support system, like my parents, who could support me in practical ways… with health insurance, for instance. It’s very difficult to focus your attention on something like social entrepreneurship if you have to worry about having food on the table or medical care.
What was your biggest learning curve?
When I first started out, my biggest learning curve was how to thoughtfully set up an evaluation for a program so that you know it works — this is an area where I was originally in totally over my head, but now I know to build evaluation in at the beginning. Later it was business logistics — finding an advisor or support system willing to work on the little things. Many want to work with the big brands or do the big picture planning, the “important” stuff but are not involved in more seemingly menial tasks like figuring out logistics, registering with the states you operate in, signing up for workers compensation, etc… Those are the things you have to figure out when you’re starting a new organization but not when you walk into one that already has those components set up. That was a very steep learning curve… making sure I had all of the things in place that we needed to operate legally.
What is something you wish someone would’ve told you when you started this journey?
That it’s OK to make mistakes and fall on your face. You just have to get back up. I always ask folks who are running mobile clinics or free health care programs that same question to learn about all of the things that went wrong for them. If you find out what can blow up in your face, you can avoid those and make all “new” mistakes instead of falling into the same traps that other people have seen before.
What are three tips you would give to other social entrepreneurs getting started this winter?
First, surround yourself with people who are either more knowledgeable than you are or have more experience. Find people who are willing to advise you and offer guidance without shouting you down…don’t undersell your own experience and value, but also don’t lose sight of your weaknesses. My biggest piece of advice is to find your strengths and play to them, then close behind is to find advisors who can fill in the gaps for your weaknesses or blind spots. My third tip is around the pressure and instinct to be very formal because you think it makes you look more professional. Of course, you should know the numbers, have a well-rehearsed pitch, and have done your research, but people want to know that your heart and soul are really in it. You want to deliver a pitch that gets people excited about what you’re excited about. That said, not all audiences are the same, so read the room and go with your gut. I also recognize that I say all this as a white woman, which comes with the privilege that I face lower standards in the need to be formal than are often faced by people of color. So that advice, unfortunately, is not the same for everyone. I can just speak to my personal experience.
Who’s a social entrepreneur you admire and why?
I certainly respect people like Paul Farmer and other well-known people who have started big programs, but there are a lot of people that I have come across over the years whose names you wouldn’t know at the top of my list. The people who are in the communities, doing the work, and don’t get the recognition. No one knows their names but they’re just heads down, chugging along, working with a nonprofit that’s having an incredibly profound impact on their community — even if they don’t get any recognition. I’m motivated and inspired by the people running the small community organizations that are having a direct impact …just doing what they do because it needs to be done.
On a Mission is a weekly publication of interviews with mission-driven founders trying to solve big problems.
