Population Connection
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our mission: Overpopulation threatens the quality of life for people everywhere. Population Connection is the national grassroots population organization that educates young people and advocates progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth’s resources. World population may reach 8 billion by 2023. Rapid population growth destroys the environment, & degrades human quality of life. As long as 214+/- million women in the developing world who want to avoid pregnancy are unable to access modern contraception these serious problems will continue.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Population Education
The Population Education program ("PopEd") trains K-12 teachers, professors of education, and student-teachers how to incorporate population-related issues into their day-to-day teaching plans.
To that end, the program offers a variety of activities to “spread the word” about the importance of population. Programs include:
1) PopEd Workshops are live action and interactive demonstrations of our program teaching material. We sponsor 700+ workshops yearly at colleges, universities, educational conferences, and other venues across the U.S. and Canada. With the help of the 600 member Teacher Trainer Network (educators and teachers who volunteer to hold workshops across the country), we are able to reach many more participants.
2) Conferences allow us to reach large numbers of educators in an efficient way. In the first half of 2019, staff and members of the Teacher Trainer Network will attend 80 conferences, all across the U.S., both local and national. We’ll hold workshops and table at events for the Wisconsin Association for Family and Consumer Sciences; the Association for Family and Consumer Sciences national conference (attendance around 1,000 members); Hoosier (IN) Association of Science Teachers, and at the annual conference of the National Council for History Education, among many others. Participating in conferences allows us to meet large and small groups of teachers and educators from a range of fields; share our material with them; and market our cause.
3) Leadership Training Institutes are held in diverse geographic areas to prepare educators to train others in their area. In 201, we held three institutes, training about 50 university faculty, professional educators, and educators from nonformal environments (zoos, museums, nature centers, etc.) These educators now offer PopEd workshops to their own audiences, expanding the reach of population education.
4) Curriculum material, including classroom activities, is available at workshops and via the website, populationeducation.org. We also provide extensive support to our educators. We design and publish indepth K-12 material, including a completely new high school package, "Earth Matters."
PopEd's website at www.populationeducation.org allows teachers to request workshops, access curriculum and activities, and view the well-known "Dot" video that shows the growth of global population.
Grassroots Advocacy/Field
The Advocacy Program mobilizes and organizes influential voters in a number of districts. These voters, in turn, pressure elected representatives and policymakers to promote international family planning, making clear to policymakers that there is strong domestic support for funding overseas family planning programs. By mobilizing a base of community support for family planning in key places, we are building the long-term momentum necessary for well funded family planning programs. These advocates will keep in touch with their policymakers and reach out to other activists, keeping population in the public eye.
Along with our sister organization, Population Connection Action Fund (PCAF), Population Connection is, without question, the preeminent grassroots advocate on behalf of more funding for--and fewer restrictions on--US government investment in International Family Planning.
Recent accomplishments (held in tandem with Population Connection Action Fund) include:
1) Population Connection and the Population Connection Action Fund hosted our annual Capitol Hill Days advocacy weekend. We mobilized 352 citizen activists in Washington, DC for the biggest Capitol Hill Days to date. We were joined by all of our #Fight4HER organizers and top campaign volunteers from each of our six states, and constituents met with nearly 200 congressional offices.
2) 1,000 people attended an International Women’s Day teach-in at Ohio State University.
3) Our #Fight4HER campaign in PA teamed up with Planned Parenthood of PA to deliver 22,000 petitions to Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R/PA) office.
4) Population Connection hosted Dianah Nalwanga, Program Manager for Conservation through Public Health in Uganda. Dianah spoke during one of our informational sessions at Capitol Hill Days, and joined the Field team for trips to visit our #Fight4HER campaigns in Ohio and North Carolina.
Where we work
External reviews
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Our goal is the to stabilize population growth via women's empowerment and access to the full range of domestic & international family planning programs. We aim to educate activists, educators, and college students about the negative ramifications of rapid population growth, and mobilize them to become an effective constituency.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We have two main programs, Population Education (PopEd) and Field and Outreach, which help us accomplish these goals. Through PopEd, we facilitate 530 teacher-training workshops where we train educators to integrate population into their K-12 curricula in 11 subjects, from geography to social sciences. We also match our K-12 curricula to every state standard. To date, our staff has matched PopEd's hundreds of lesson plans to national standards to make it easy for teachers to use our materials in their classrooms. The PopEd curricula acquaint students with the complexities of population pressures, climate change, natural resource use, endangered wildlife, the distribution of food and wealth, gender equity, economic progress, and the interrelationship of these issues.
Population Connection's Field and Outreach Program mobilizes and organizes influential voters in swing districts. These voters, in turn, pressure elected representatives and policymakers to promote for international family planning, making clear to policymakers that there is strong domestic support for funding overseas family planning programs. Furthermore, Population Connection hosts Capitol Hill Days in Washington, D.C each spring. This event brings together grassroots advocates from across the country, with a focus on our target districts.
Finally, our magazine, “The Reporter," provides our members, activists, and volunteers with valuable information and thoughtful viewpoints on the wide-reaching impacts of population growth. With a circulation of 42,000, we include free subscriptions for more than 3,000 college and university libraries. We also use Twitter and Facebook (where we have nearly 28,000 fans) as well as our website (www.populationconnection.org) to keep our supporters up to date on population issues and legislation.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Population Connection is a grassroots organization with 40,000 members, and thousands of supporters, that we call on to raise visibility about population and population related issues.
Our Grassroots Advocacy team recruits and trains of students and student organizations across the country, including active cohorts at the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth; University of Arizona and Arizona State University; University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; University of Colorado-Boulder; University of Washington and Seattle University; and Penn State, among others. Population Connection holds talks; panels; and film screenings on these campuses to raise visibility; educate difference audience; attract activists; and encourage action.
The Grassroots Advocacy Program also holds the annual Capitol Hill Days event, which brings 300+ activists, including many college students, to Washington, DC to educate them about population issues. The weekend consists of panels on topics from water to reproductive health; participants also visit their elected officials to discuss these matters.
The Population Education (PopEd) program sends staff and members of its teachers' network to venues in the United States (and Canada) to train educators and student-teachers how to incorporate population and population related issues into the curriculum. We spread the word about population and its relation to the environment and women's empowerment by holding 550+ workshops annually for university faculty and student teachers, who reach approx. 1 million K-12 students. We facilitate Leadership Training workshops for education faculty and professional educators, from formal and informal institutions, who hold their own workshops across the U.S.
PopEd creates and maintains a wide variety of platforms for teachers, student-teachers, and educators using our material in the classroom and in the field. Populationeducation.org is a robust site that includes lesson plans, teaching material, and interactive learning tools, including a population history video and microsite. PopEd sponsors a national middle and high school video competition on issues related to population that attracts thousands of video entries and significant media attention.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Among its activities, In 2018, Population Education held more than 500 teacher trainer workshops across the U.S. Program activities were incorporated into 133 Advanced Placement (AP) Summer Institutes in 30 states, covering Environmental Science; Human Geography; World History; and U.S. History AP courses.
We hosted two training institutes for new educators preparing to become PopEd facilitators for about 60 academic educators as well as K-12 and nonformal teachers in the Southeast and Northeast. Faculty joined us from schools including Spelman, Kennesaw State, Brenau, Auburn, UTennessee, Piedmont; area school districts; professional development (PD) providers from state educational agencies; environmental educators from area nonprofit organizations; and attendees from as far away as Chicago and Boulder.
The 8th World of 7 Billion Student Video Contest was launched, and has received 1000 videos so far. Themes include 1) Preserving Biodiversity; 2) Sustainable Resource Use; and 3) Protecting Human Rights.
The Advocacy program held the annual Capitol Hill Days in March 2018, with 348 activists in attendance, including large groups from areas across the U.S. Activists met with 169 members of Congress to advocate for international and domestic family planning funding and other population related matters. The keynote speaker was Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, a sexual and reproductive health advocate from South Africa. Other speakers represented national and international NGOs working on reproductive health and rights issues. We also had "mini" trainings for student activists on campuses across the U.S.
We sent several attendees to the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition event in Brussels, Belgium. As a member of the Advocacy and Accountability Working Group, we met with others on supply commodity gaps and the needs for grassroots and local-level advocacy.
Our magazine is published four times each year, and included articles informing our members about population and other issues. We devoted an issue to Reproductive Justice (RJ), with articles on Loretta Ross, one of the early RJ advocates; and how progressives can become better RJ "allies." A recent issue examined the economic crisis in Venezuela and how it is negatively affecting women and children.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Population Connection
Board of directorsas of 11/08/2023
Mr. Bryce Hach
North Yarmouth Academy, Yarmouth, ME
Term: 2023 - 2025
Bryce Hach
S. Yarmouth Academy
Amy Dickson
Benefits Division (Director), CO Dept. of Health Care & Financingood of the Rocky Mountains
Bob Pettapiece
Wayne State University (MI) - Retired Professor
Aaron Allen
UNC-Greensboro (Assoc. Professor)
Mark Hathaway
Unity Health Care; MCSP/Jhpiego (DC) (MD Director)
Rodrigo Barillas
Luis von Ahn Foundation (ED)
Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka
Conservation Through Public Health - CTPH (CEO/Founder)
Seema Mohapatra
SMU Dedman School of Law (Law Professor)
Melvine Ouyo
HKSAI (Founder/ED)
Estelle Raboni
Director, Sexual & Reproductive Health, Bureau of Maternal, Infant & Reproductive Health, NYC Dept. of Health & Mental Hygiene
Heather Smith
Health, Population & Nutrition Program-Zambia, USAID
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes