- Name: Ethan Freedman
- Date: February 2, 2026
- Institution: Columbia University School of Social Work, New York
- Course context: Fundraising and Development (SOCWT712A), Prof. Gabrielle Gilliam
Acknowledgements
In introducing the following work, I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory on which we learn, work, and resource from at Columbia University School of Social Work is land of the Lenape and Wappinger indigenous peoples. Let us commit ourselves to the struggle against the forces that have dispossessed the Lenape and Wappinger, and other indigenous peoples of their lands.
I would also like to acknowledge Prof. Gabrielle Gilliam and their facilitation of SOCWT712A. With Prof. Baptist’s lecturers, recommended readings, and my additional thoughts – this piece took form. Moreover, all my peers in class who contributed to discussions and building ideas that related to the present topic. With these acknowledgements, I present my following work.
Investing in Sexual Health Infrastructure: A Strategic Funding of Policy and Practice
With $5,000 to give away at the end of the year, I would like to divide my donations between SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change and American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT). I would allocate $3,000 to SIECUS and $2,000 to AASECT, in efforts to reflect my commitment to supporting both systemic policy change and the professional infrastructure that sustains ethical, evidence-based sexual health education and care.
I would prioritize SIECUS with the larger portion of my donation because of its national role in shaping sex education policy, advocacy, and public discourse. SIECUS operates upstream, addressing the structural conditions that determine whether young people have access to medically accurate, inclusive, and justice centered health education in the first place. Through its State Profiles, legislative monitoring, and coalition based advocacy, SIECUS documents how fragmented and inequitable sex education laws create disparities across race, gender, geography, class, and other demographics. This data driven approach mixed in with human centered outcomes allows SIECUS to intervene at the level of systems rather than reactionary, making the organization particularly well positioned to produce long term impact.
$3,000 to a D.C. based 501(c)(3) has the capacity to go a fair amount of way when considering the impact of small donors and the absolute power of the current administration in eliminating resources directly related to SIECUS praxis. My decision to give to SIECUS also reflects the realities of advocacy funding. Policy organizations are frequently constrained by restricted grants and short term funding cycles that undervalue infrastructure, research, and staff capacity. An unrestricted individual gift helps support the essential and less visible work of coalition coordination, policy analysis, and rapid response to legislative threats. In a political climate where sexual health education is increasingly targeted by censorship and misinformation, SIECUS’s ability to remain agile and well resources is critical to the change I envision.
In tandem, I would allocate $2,000 to AASECT because sustainable sexual health education reform necessitates a strong ethical and professional field of practice. AASECT is a 501(c)(3) with a vital role in setting standards, credentials, and continuing education for health educators, counselors, therapists, social workers, and more across the United States. While policy advocacy determines what education is ideal or allowed, organizations like AASECT help ensure that sexual health education and clinical practice are competent, ethical, and trauma informed when they are delivered.
AASECT’s certification and professional development frameworks support practitioners who directly work with individuals, couples, families, and communities, often at points of vulnerability related to identity, pleasure, trauma, or health. Investing in AASECT means supporting the integrity of the field itself, including ethical guidelines, accountability mechanisms, and ongoing learning that keeps practice aligned with evolving research and social realities. This professional backbone is especially important in a field historically shaped by stigma, moral panic, and uneven training standards.
Together, SIECUS and AASECT represent complementary approaches to social change that leave me impassioned. One operates at the level of policy and systems, the other at the level of professional practice and human relationships. Splitting $5,000 between these organizations allows me to support both the conditions that make comprehensive sexual health education possible and the people who carry that work with care, rigor, and accountability.