Flexible funds to open opportunities

Ana Langer“It is so important for the School to have flexible money to invest in new ideas, but money that comes without strings attached is hard to come by. I want to help with that.

“When you write a new proposal, you obviously can’t use funds that have come from other grants. You need a little pot of money from which you can draw to leverage key priorities. For example, we spent about $30,000 on development of a proposal that, in 2011, led to an almost $14 million grant from the Gates Foundation for the Maternal Health Task Force. In this way, with relatively little money, we managed to leverage a very large project.

“We also use flexible funds to open opportunities to students. For instance, we are now supporting a doctoral student’s participation in a family planning conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This trip will significantly increase the visibility of our work, and it will also be a wonderful career step for her. These additional opportunities cost so little compared to what they bring—in this case, a wonderful champion for global reproductive health.

“I truly believe in the mission of this School, and I want my colleagues to have the flexibility to advance their amazing portfolios. I know how limited our unrestricted resources are, and—in a very, very modest way—I want to help overcome some of these challenges.”

— Ana Langer, Director of the Women and Health Initiative