Fistula Foundation Advances Women’s Global Health and Equity With 19,577 Surgeries and $28M Raised in 2025

“Reaching 125,000 surgeries is a milestone we couldn’t have imagined when we started,” said CEO Pam Lowney. “But it’s also a reminder of how much work remains. Hundreds of thousands of women in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are living with obstetric fistula right now. This is a condition that is entirely treatable and almost entirely ignored. Every year we grow is both a cause for gratitude and a call to do more.”

Building on a Breakthrough

From 527 surgeries in 2009 to 19,577 in 2025, Fistula Foundation has sustained 25% compound annual growth in surgical output over sixteen years. That growth was built on a bedrock laid by founding CEO Kate Grant, who retired last year after more than two decades leading the organization and whose memoir, No Woman Left Behind, continues to broaden awareness of obstetric fistula worldwide.

The organization’s focus on partnering with trusted local surgeons and hospitals in the regions of highest unmet need has made Fistula Foundation the leading funder of fistula surgery worldwide, delivering a $624 procedure that gives women their lives back. The Foundation receives 100% of its funding from private philanthropy. Pam Lowney, who joined the organization more than seven years ago, succeeded Grant as CEO in 2025.

In 2023, MacKenzie Scott made a $15 million unrestricted gift to Fistula Foundation, the largest single gift in the organization’s history. Rather than building reserves, the Foundation deployed 100% of the capital immediately, funding more than 13,000 surgeries by March 2025 for women who would have otherwise gone without. The bet paid off. The rapid scale-up highlighted the vast, unmet need for treatment and the Foundation’s ability to efficiently translate large, flexible gifts into measurable impact, which in turn helped to attract additional support. 2025’s record $28 million in fundraising reflects that sustained momentum and will fuel further expansion of the Foundation’s work in more than 35 countries.

A Problem the World Can Solve

Obstetric fistula occurs when prolonged, obstructed labor causes a hole between the birth canal and bladder or rectum, leaving women incontinent and, in many communities, stigmatized and isolated. The condition is almost unheard of in countries with access to emergency obstetric care, but affects hundreds of thousands of women across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

“We wish more people knew that this global health crisis affecting women can be solved in our lifetime,” said Lowney. “It only takes a surgery to transform a woman’s life. When a mother’s life is changed, so is her family’s, and before you know it, an entire community is changed.”

To learn more or to support Fistula Foundation’s work, visit fistulafoundation.org.

About Fistula Foundation

Fistula Foundation is the global leader in treating obstetric fistula and related childbirth injuries. Since 2009, the nonprofit has supported more than 125,000 surgeries in more than 35 countries across Africa and Asia by partnering with trusted local surgeons and hospitals in areas of high unmet need. Together with its global community of supporters, the charity delivers more of these life-transforming surgeries than any other organization in the world, and aims to leave no woman behind.

Media Contact

Angela Baldwin, Baldwin PR, 1 6502703082, [email protected], www.fistulafoundation.com

SOURCE Fistula Foundation