What is the Nurture Now Initiative? 

It’s a 501(c) (3) that’s focused on advocating for prenatal care and providing access to resources across Indiana. We normally do this in the form of prenatal care resource guides that I developed and community partnerships. 

How did you start the Nurture Now Initiative?

The idea came a couple years ago, a friend and I did a project for HOSA, which is the medical club at CHS, and we researched prenatal care for our competition. It interested me because there’s a large amount of prenatal disparities throughout Indiana. We did a bunch of research and talked to different mothers who were going through difficult situations, and Indiana’s maternal mortality rate is super high because of lack of prenatal care, so it kind of interested me to do something about it because nothing was being done.

How big has the Nurture Now Initiative grown? 

I think from when we started, we’ve made a lot of developments in community partnerships. That’s our biggest area of growth. I mean, we work with hospitals throughout Central Indiana, and we work with different professors from schools as well. We’re also currently building community partnerships with the city of Carmel, so that includes the Carmel Fire Department and the mayor of Carmel. And we’re also working on partnerships with the Carmel Police Department.

What are the main goals of the Nurture Now Initiative? 

Firstly, it’s just to advocate for prenatal care and educate people about the disparities that currently exist. A second major goal would be distributing our prenatal care resource guides, especially to underserved communities and those who don’t really know which direction to go once they get pregnant. Also, our eventual goal is some sort of change in policy or an alteration to policy, because a lot of the time, people don’t get the care they need due to either economic gaps or some sort of social gap. So that’s also something that we hope to fix in the future.

How have you seen support for the Nurture Now Initiative? 

A lot of the support we get right now is through those community partnerships that we make. Most of our community partnerships are distribution partners. So, we give them a stack of our prenatal care guides, and they distribute them throughout their clinics to those underserved communities. As a nonprofit, especially a small one, it’s kind of difficult to get access to the community that you want to reach. So, a lot of the support has been reaching that community. On the other hand, donations and funding have been a huge aspect of ways that other organizations have supported us.

How did you create this guide?

It started with a lot of just online research, like a regular research process, going through different government websites, and that was kind of where we got the initial base information. From there, I did a lot of field research. I would go and talk to mothers in different maternal houses. An example is the O’Connor House, where those are mothers that are considered underserved, they’re not getting the prenatal care they desire. I went there and asked, “What did you guys wish you had when you started this journey?” That’s kind of where I understood what exactly should go inside the prenatal care resource guide. From there, I talked to different licensed professionals, such as OB-GYNs and nutritionists, and that was used to actually gather the information that’s in the guide.

How do you promote the Nurture Now Initiative? 

A lot of our promotion is done through social media. Our Instagram page has grown a good amount from what we had originally on there. We post different updates about what Nurture Now is doing. We post about community partnerships, and we post about our mission. Another major thing is our LinkedIn account, because a lot of the time, when we make updates on LinkedIn, many people get interested. I often get messages on LinkedIn inquiring about the initiative and ways other people can get involved. So, I would say that’s our major method.

Is there anyone else on your team? 

No. It’s just me at the moment. I have a couple of family members who are helping out with some backend tasks, like finances, but in terms of being the face of the initiative, that’s just me right now.

What do you hope people take away from the Nurture Now Initiative? 

I think more than things about prenatal care, it’s important that people in our generation know the importance of taking action when something needs to be done. I mean, we’ve gone years without anything being done about prenatal care simply because it’s very difficult to gain traction for a topic so niche. But, I think having the courage to go forward and actually do something about it is something that’s going to change a lot of things in the world. So, I think that’s probably the biggest takeaway from Nurture Now, at least for me, and I think it’s important for the rest of our generation as well.

What has been the most impactful experience you have taken away from the Nurture Now Initiative? 

I obviously value all of our community partnerships but one person, specifically, who really stood out to me and really changed the trajectory of the initiative, is a professor at IU. I actually met her at a health fair and she was really interested in the initiative. Now, we work together to conduct research and make it a part of different courses at IU, and there’s a lot going on in that aspect. So, I think that kind of changed the trajectory of the initiative.

What goes on behind the scenes of the Nurture Now Initiative?

It’s genuinely just a lot of emailing, calling, and following up. I think in order to actually create a partnership with someone, it takes a lot of coaxing the relationship, because making a connection as a smaller entity can be difficult without credibility. A lot of the back end process right now is: I make a connection with somebody, then I email them, and I may not get a response for days. Then I continue to email them, call them, and follow up until I make that connection stable.

The other aspect probably goes back to funding, because a huge part of actually producing the prenatal care resource guides and distributing them is money, you need to have the money to produce them. So, I think funding goes into the planning process as well, because I need to be able to budget and allocate funds for different aspects of the initiative.

What are some lessons you have taken away from the Nurture Now Initiative? 

Rejection is okay, and most of the time, it’s actually really helpful. A lot of my earlier partnerships that I tried to make didn’t work out, mainly because there wasn’t enough established credibility. At that moment, I personally felt really let down about the whole thing. But once I found that one person who was actually interested in the initiative, it just kind of went up from there. I mean, everyone’s interested. So, I think a huge lesson for me was that rejection’s okay, and sometimes it’s the best thing that can happen, because at that point, I was able to focus on building the initiative and the resources it had, rather than the partnerships it made.

What advice would you give to students who are trying to start a similar initiative?

Take advice with a grain of salt, because people will come at you and tell you a bunch of different viewpoints and opinions that they have on your initiative. I think it’s important to take that with a grain of salt, because you know what’s best for your initiative at the end of the day. You know what partnerships to make, and you know how to go about things, because you wouldn’t be in the position of starting an initiative if you didn’t. I also just think you should believe in your mission, no matter how much rejection you face, because if you put your heart and soul into it, at the end of the day, it’ll become something that everyone also admires.