Birth Companions receives major funding from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

We are delighted to share that Birth Companions has been awarded a major three-year grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, in support of our work to achieve better care, equity and justice for pregnant women, mothers and babies experiencing inequity and disadvantage.

This funding will support the strategic influencing work of our Birth Companions Institute and our Lived Experience Programme, helping us to drive systemic change in policy and practice across the criminal justice, children's social care and immigration systems, and beyond –and will be central to the implementation of Birth Companions 2030, our new five-year strategy.

Every woman deserves to be supported and cared for during pregnancy and early motherhood. For too many, that is simply not the case. Through our Institute and Lived Experience Programme, we work closely with partners with lived, learned and professional experience, generating insights to drive lasting change in policy and practice at a national level. This grant means we can continue, and build on, this work.

We are enormously grateful to Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, a long-standing supporter of Birth Companions, for this further vote of confidence. Esmée's approach to funding, offering unrestricted core costs over a sustained period, reflects a deep trust in the organisations and people doing this work. For a small organisation like ours, that kind of security and flexibility is transformative. It means we can plan ahead with confidence, and that the women with lived experience who are at the heart of everything we do can continue to shape how we use it.

This is the third major multi-year commitment to the Birth Companions Institute since its launch in September 2025, following significant grants from Impact on Urban Health and Henry Smith Foundation. We are heartened by this growing recognition of the importance of our systems change work, and the trust placed in us to carry it forward.