In the immediate aftermath of the June 2022 Dobbs decision, Richmond’s reproductive health organizations received a groundswell of donations and volunteer support. But more recently, those same organizations are struggling to provide basic services to folks seeking care.
“After Dobbs, many abortion funds experienced a surge in donations,” said Dr. Stephanie Arnold, a doctor and founder of Seven Hills Family Medicine. “That financial support has declined while demand remains high. Public attention has shifted elsewhere.”
One such abortion fund is the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, an organization designed to help abortion seekers navigate financial and logistical obstacles in the city. The staff at RRFP have felt the same trends.
“After Roe fell, we got a huge swell of donations, which was incredible,” said P.K., the Fundraising and Sustainability Coordinator at RRFP. “Now, four years on, a lot of those donations have tapered off.”
In 2022, RRFP received over 54,000 transactions it categorized as donations. Those donations come in from both individuals and charitable foundations. But in 2025, RRFP received only 25,000 donations—less than half what it received three years prior. And although RRFP’s donations are recovering some in 2026 after a hard fundraising push—the organization is on pace to earn roughly 40,000 donations in 2026—its budget still trails significantly behind what it needs to provide care to everyone who calls in.
As donations for abortion care in Richmond dwindle, demand for abortion care in the region is increasing. That’s in part because Virginia, as the only Southern state without a broad abortion ban, is a receiver state.
According to estimates from the CDC, the total number of abortion procedures conducted in the state of Virginia in 2022 was estimated at 16,722.
After the Dobbs decision, the CDC ceased its annual abortion reports. But according to The Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization based in New York, the number of abortions in Virginia in 2023 spiked from 16,722 to over 33,000. More than 15% of those abortions were provided to nonresidents. And in both 2024 and 2025, over 40,000 abortion procedures were conducted in Virginia, with nearly 25% of those provided to nonresidents. This represented the largest spike in abortion procedures of any state in the U.S.
Virginia also has the highest percentage of out-of-state residents receiving abortion care of all states.
With the rising demands on Virginia’s reproductive health system, Richmond in particular is under a good deal of pressure; Richmond-area abortion providers and funds offer resources not found in many other parts of the region.
For instance, the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project is the only fund in the East Coast region with a 24/7 dedicated line to people whose primary language isn’t English. RRFP is also one of the only abortion funds in Virginia to provide a phone line dedicated to incarcerated care seekers.
Although abortion is technically legal in the state, many Virginians still need to travel into Richmond to receive the care and resources they need.
“Legal and accessible are not the same thing,” said Arnold. “Large parts of Virginia still have limited access to abortion services, requiring patients to travel significant distances for care.”
More about the Abortion Quilt from the author: Many hands created the Abortion Quilt from December 2024 to May 2026. 52 quilt squares were made by first-time quilters, RRFP volunteers and staff, people who have gotten abortions, grandmas, mamas, and aunties. Squares represent the one Mifepristone and four Misoprostol pills a person seeking an abortion may take, flying geese moving towards clinics, the ways abortion runs through all of our lives, the abundance, the friendship, & celebration represented in the three of cups, and much more. The words, Abortion is a Miracle, hug the patchwork. The Abortion Quilt debuted during Fund-A-Thon 2026, and raised over $5,000 for RRFP’s callers through a raffle of the quilt organized by the Abortion Quilt team.
In 2025, RRFP received over 2,000 requests for support, far more than the number of requests RRFP was receiving before the Dobbs decision. And in the first half of 2026, RRFP is consistently receiving double to triple the usual amount of callers on its language access line.
“There’s only so many folks that we can support,” said P.K. “That’s been the challenge, just the volume. The incredible volume of people seeking care.”
Whenever a new caller needs abortion care, RRFP begins making arrangements to help however it can. To make sure the organization doesn’t spend beyond its budget, the RRFP employee receiving the call allots a section of RRFP’s budget to any costs related to that caller’s care—transit, lodging, the procedure itself, furlough costs, etc. But demand on RRFP’s language access line has been so high that already this year RRFP had to hold an emergency fundraiser to avoid closing the line altogether. So far in 2026, calls from the language access line alone are costing RRFP over $10,000 per month.
P.K. believes inflation and rising costs in Richmond are also a likely cause for fewer donations. And the donations that are coming in, she says, are having less impact.
“The higher cost of living means, for our work, flights are more expensive, food is more expensive, hotels, lodging, rides. Everything for our callers is expensive as well,” P.K. said.
RRFP also maintains a general intake phone line for folks requesting care, a line the staff tries to keep open from 9 am – 2 pm every Tuesday or until RRFP’s budget for the week runs out. “We have had to close our general line just two hours after opening each week for the last two years,” P.K. said.
Arnold says Richmond’s providers are also feeling the impact of these financial challenges. “Rising operating costs for healthcare organizations have increased the cost of providing care, creating additional pressure,” she said.
According to Arnold, the challenging financial landscape is even changing the timeline of abortion care.
“What we’ve seen is an increase in patients seeking later abortions, particularly from states with abortion bans or severe restrictions,” Arnold said. “When people have to travel long distances, arrange childcare, take time off work, and gather money for transportation and medical care, those delays can push care later into pregnancy.”
But delaying care also raises costs.
“Abortion generally becomes more expensive as pregnancy advances, making it even harder for patients to access care,” Arnold said. “Unfortunately, that creates a vicious cycle.”
And Richmonders with access to fewer resources are more likely to get stuck in that cycle. “Virginia Medicaid only covers abortion care only in very rare circumstances,” Arnold said. “So the cost falls largely on the patient.”
“The cost of living is crushing folks,” said P.K. “It’s harder to receive the kind of donations that we were getting because people are just focused on surviving. Everything’s more expensive. A lot of folks who may have been able to cover their abortion care before now can’t because of the higher overall cost of living. It’s a very challenging landscape.”
It’s not only donations from the general public that are drying up. P.K. says that in recent years,she’s seen philanthropic organizations shift their attention away from the city’s reproductive health organizations. This echoes a recent national trend, which shows large philanthropic foundations and government funding organizations pivoting away from nonprofit giving.
“The folks who are making the big grants are focusing more on advocacy and policy than the folks on the ground doing the work,” said P.K. “Especially in Virginia. With very large nonprofits, there’s less attention on direct service.”
P.K. believes public perceptions about abortion might be influencing these large-scale funding shifts. “It feels sometimes [like] the policy work feels more palatable and more easily packaged,” she said. “A big challenge we face, and all abortion funds are facing right now, is abortion stigma. And because of that stigma, sometimes our work is less palatable to a bigger swath of people. Sometimes folks bristle at direct abortion funding.”
Staffers at RRFP are regularly concerned about protecting their own safety as well as the safety of the folks seeking the organization’s support. Accordingly, RRFP chooses not to collect some data, such as details on their callers’ travel distances.
“We are also navigating a political climate that is especially hostile towards Black and brown folks,” said P.K., “making callers navigating public settings like clinics, airports, etc. more difficult.”
P.K. requested the use of her initials in this story because of concerns about safety and privacy.
“The work requires a high degree of emotional resilience,” Arnold said. “What motivates most abortion providers is the desire to be there for people during a difficult moment. We want patients to have access to qualified professionals who can provide safe, evidence-based, compassionate care when they need it.”
If conditions are going to improve, P.K. believes Richmonders need to talk to each other more about the recent challenges abortion funds and providers in the city are facing as well as the avenues to care that still exist.
“Social media and online pushes can only do so much,” P.K. said. “I think how we grow and sustain our future is by word of mouth and just folks being excited about us.”
The Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project welcomes fundraisers year-round. Anyone can start one. Though circumstances are growing more difficult, P.K. believes the work is more important than ever.
“Over the summer [of 2025] we had a caller who needed furlough to receive care. So for their furlough costs, we created an emergency fundraiser,” P.K. said. “We put out this call: Here’s what we’re able to do, here’s our limitations, let’s get this caller here. We shared that this caller needs $950 to be able to receive their furlough to get to their appointment. And we met that goal in under 12 hours. Which was incredible.”
Success stories like this are what keep P.K. going and believing in the work. Arnold feels similarly about the abortion services her clinic offers.
“Healthcare exists because life doesn’t always go according to plan,” Arnold said. “We don’t assume someone who needs treatment for appendicitis or a heart attack was irresponsible; we recognize that they need skilled, compassionate care. Abortion care is no different.”
While abortion is currently legal in Virginia, the right to abortion is not yet protected in the state constitution. State Senator Jennifer Boysko has introduced a new measure to change that. In the upcoming general election, Richmonders will be able to vote on an amendment that would enshrine some protections to abortion access into the state constitution.
The amendment provides a referendum “to approve or reject an amendment to the Constitution of Virginia relating to the right to make one’s own decisions related to reproductive health care, including access to abortion.” The amendment would also protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished for providing abortion and other reproductive health services.
The 2026 general election is on Tuesday, November 3.
Main image: P.K. Preparing for Zine Fest 2025, photo courtesy of Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project
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