When the Center for Reproductive Rights needed to “retool” to respond simultaneously to changes in the U.S. and the opportunities created by its growing international program, its leadership turned to MAG experts.

“They know the reproductive rights landscape, and they know the international landscape, so their work with us came out of a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities we were facing and respect for the Center,” says Vivian Lindermayer,  Development Director of the Center. “They recognized that we weren’t a grassroots organization and faced challenges particular to a legal organization.”

Working closely with MAG, the Center undertook a leadership and organizational assessment. “Together, we looked at issues related to our organizational culture and built our strength and leadership capacity as a management team,” Lindermayer says.  The next step was undertaking an ambitious and highly successful strategic planning process in 2007, an initiative also guided by MAG.

Founded in 1992, the Center began with a strong U.S. litigation team, and soon developed a robust international program as well.   The challenge 15 years later, according to Lindermayer, was to unify the Center as a global human rights organization and develop the legal strategies needed to respond both to changes in the U.S. legal landscape and expanding possibilities on the global scene.  “We retooled our U.S. strategy, expanding it by bringing in strategies we were using in our international work and launching a major initiative to influence how law schools teach reproductive rights.”     

According to Lindermayer, the impact of working with MAG has been significant: The organization stretched and grew, and the cross-institutional collaborative approach stimulated bold and creative thinking. “In 2008, the first year of implementing the strategic plan, we have done significant work in creating an academic fellowship with Columbia Law School, in creating a legal game plan for bold policy change by the new Administration, and in documenting racial disparities in reproductive health in the U.S. More broadly, we now consistently ask how human rights strategies can be integrated with every aspect of our work in the U.S.  We have also begun to plan for an expansion of the International Program in 2010.”

Lindermayer says that throughout these very challenging transformations MAG experts brought very particular skills to the table in addition to their understanding of reproductive rights. “Change is hard, but MAG made it easier by being patient at the right moments and tenacious at the right moments. In addition, Lindermayer says, the MAG consultants the Center worked with understood the structural underpinnings of organizational dynamics.  That was really key for us in taking the steps we needed to take to create an atmosphere of collaboration among departments and begin dismantling program “silos.”