In the Cup
The Commissioner’s Cup presented by Coinbase will continue to feature a platform through which the league makes charitable contributions to non-profit organizations aligned to the players’ social justice work. The accumulating donation dollars will be presented to each organization at the conclusion of the Commissioner’s Cup Championship.
Below is a list of the women’s reproductive and health non-profits that each of the teams chose to support through their 2023 Commissioner’s Cup play.
Atlanta Dream: Helping Mamas
Helping Mamas is the baby supply bank of Georgia and East Tennessee. Diapers are as essential to a baby’s healthy development as a mother’s love. Keeping infants and toddlers clean, dry, and healthy is key to building a solid foundation for all children to reach their full potential. But one in three families struggles to provide clean diapers for their baby. To date, Helping Mamas has served over 200,000 children in need and has distributed over three million essential baby supplies to families living in poverty. In Atlanta alone, Helping Mamas works with over 150 partner agencies across the state to supply mothers in need with essential items like diapers, car seats, pack-n-plays, clothing, and hygiene items.
Chicago Sky: Sista Afya Community Care
Sista Afya Community Mental Wellness’ vision is for Black women across the African Diaspora to be free from psychological and physical illness through supporting one another and engaging in accessible mental wellness care that centers the well-being of the whole person.
Connecticut Sun: Waterbury Bridge to Success’s #Day43 Campaign
#Day43 strives to create solutions to combat Black maternal mortality and to support an all-around equitable environment for all women, birthing people, and their babies. By transforming systems, #Day43 will raise awareness on Black women’s maternal health in the city of Waterbury through training, research, technical assistance, policy, advocacy, and community-centered collaboration.
Dallas Wings:
Sisters Network Inc., Dallas chapter is committed to increasing local and national attention to the devastating impact that breast cancer has in the African American community. The organization is led by breast cancer survivors and caregivers who are dedicated to establishing much needed community breast health services.
Indiana Fever: The Wheeler Mission Center for Women and Children
This Wheeler Mission location provides an environment that is safe physically, emotionally and spiritually. Hundreds of women and mothers with children enter our doors seeking food, clothing and housing, but they also experience love and compassion, bringing rest for their weary souls. National studies indicate that the fastest growing segment of the homeless population consists of women and women with children, making the services offered at the CWC imperative to our community. There are five main programs at the CWC: Emergency Shelter Services, Foundations, Employed, Revive and Revive:Kids, and Higher Ground Addiction Recovery.
Las Vegas Aces: NAMI Southern Nevada
NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. What started as a small group of families gathered around a kitchen table in 1979 has blossomed into the nation’s leading voice on mental health. Today, we are an association of more than 600 local affiliates who work in your community to raise awareness and provide support and education that was not previously available to those in need.
Los Angeles Sparks: California Women’s Law Center
The California Women’s Law Center is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to create a more just and equitable society by breaking down barriers and advancing the potential of women and girls through transformative litigation, policy advocacy and education. CWLC advocates for women’s health and reproductive rights, equal pay, and economic security, as well as the unique needs of women veterans, and against gender discrimination, homelessness, domestic violence, and sexual assault.
Minnesota Lynx: African American Breast Cancer Alliance
The African American Breast Cancer Alliance (AABCA) supports breast cancer awareness and education. AABCA provides culturally specific education and programs to support Black women, who have the highest breast cancer mortality rate in the country.
New York Liberty: Callen-Lorde Health Center
Callen-Lorde Community Health Center provides sensitive, quality health care and related services targeted to New York’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities — in all their diversity — regardless of ability to pay. The Women’s Health Program at Callen-Lorde offers empowering, non-judgmental, body-positive healthcare in an open and welcoming environment.
Phoenix Mercury: Arizona Birth Workers of Color
The Phoenix Birth Foundation works to uplift the personal and professional development of community based Birthworkers of Color. The Phoenix Birth Foundation actively drives forward the tenants of birth justice for Arizona families of color. The act of giving birth should be safe, in every sense of the word, for all parents. The Phoenix Birth Foundation values the cultivation of long standing, mutually beneficial relationships with community partners and collaborators for the sustainability of our work. Working with others also brings forth joy.
Seattle Storm: Therapy Fund Foundation
WA Therapy Fund Foundation is the leading organization in Washington state offering free mental health services to Black community members with equitable pay for clinicians. Our mission is to eliminate barriers to Black healing with a vision of health equity for all. We value Wellness, Integrity, Communication & Respect.
Washington Mystics: MedStar Health’s DC Safe Babies and Safe Moms Initiative
In partnership with the A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation, MedStar Health’s D.C. Safe Babies and Safe Moms initiative is designed to improve the health, welfare, and lifelong outcomes of mothers and infants in Washington, D.C. With a special emphasis on reducing maternal and infant health disparities, D.C. Safe Babies and Safe Moms utilizes a life course framework that includes individual, family, social and community factors that influence the health of moms and babies.
The framework includes multigenerational, integrated approaches applied from preconception through delivery, postpartum, and early childhood that address maternal, environmental, social, and health system risk factors; a health equity lens, including implicit bias training and interventions for integrated health teams to overcome racial bias and toxic stress; and culturally competent patient peer navigators with lived experience to engage and retain women in the continuum of care.