12 Nonprofits to Support if You Want to Help Moms

When you become a parent, you sort of just know that you should feed and water your kid and be careful with its head. But knowing how to nurture his or her early development to set your child up for the best future can get tricky and not every parent has the resources to study up on young child psychology.

But that doesn't mean that other adults in the community aren't experts in early childhood development, and Parents as Teachers aims to connect parents with those experts. It facilitates home visits between trusted professionals and parents or caregivers, and provides specific, research-based education for parents that'll help them all the way from pregnancy to kindergarten so that children start their schooling on the right foot. 

The best way to help Parents as Teachers is to donate.

At its core, Dress for Success is designed to help women reach economic independence. It does this by providing clothes for women to wear to interviews, as well as offering development tools and a support network for women looking for jobs. It's an incredible mission, and to date, Dress for Success has helped more than 925,000 women on their path to self-sufficiency.

Since poverty disproportionally affects women -- especially those with families -- Dress for Success's help goes exactly where it needs to in order to promote gender equality. The best way to help it help women is by donating money or by donating professional clothes.

As Help a Mother Out explains on its website, diapers cost between $80 and $100 a month. For one kid. That's ... a lot of money -- several thousand dollars for each child until he or she can get potty trained, at least. And for all the people with kids living in poverty (again, mostly women), that's not always a managable expense.

Since public programs (like food stamps) don't always cover diapers, Help a Mother Out collects and distributes them to moms in need. You can donate diapers or wipes directly, or donate money.

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With a huge international presence, the Global Fund for Women has an enormous impact on the well-being of the 3.5 billion women in the world. Its mission is to teach women about the rights outlined for them by the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and, more importantly, to make sure those rights are realized on a day-to-day basis.

It does this by funding and supporting small, grassroots organizations that work with marginalized women all over the world. The best way to help it is by donating.

Carry the Future is only a year or so old, but the legacy it's created in that short time is incredible. It was set up as a direct response to the Syrian refugee crisis, and it aims to get refugees baby carriers so mothers don't need to carry their children hundreds of miles across Europe and elsewhere. In June, it also started collecting "Baby Boxes" for pregnant mothers in refugee camps to cover some of the practical and hygienic needs of new mothers and newborns.

CTF is 100 percent run by volunteers, so you can help it by joining the troops in the States or going on a distribution trip to Greece. You can also donate money or used carriers.

As essential as diapers and carriers and clothes are, sometimes a supportive community is what moms really need to thrive. That may not be something you can buy, but The Mommies Network is making it easy to find. With about 45 local chapters and 15,000 active members, TMN communities provide a space for mothers to meet, learn from each other, find childcare and babysitters, find play dates, and enjoy a supportive community.

You can help by volunteering, donating, or starting your own local chapter.

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The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) helps survivors of domestic violence by providing support and services, as well as by influencing public policy. Women (and therefore mothers) are disproportionately affected by domestic violence, so many NCADV resources go to helping and supporting them by removing them from dangerous situations.

The best way to help NCADV is to donate, purchase items from its store, or become a member.

The ultimate goal of Good+ is to break the cycle of poverty, and it's found that the best way to do this is by starting with parents. Good+ works with community-based programs to provide equipment (think: strollers and cribs) and clothing to parents in need, but in exchange for the goods, parents need to meet goals that better their future and their child's. Those goals could be anything from opening an education savings account to finishing school to improving a credit score, but all will help them break out of the cycle of generational poverty and avoid passing it on to their children.

Good+ is always looking for donations of money or goods, as well as volunteers.

The "I Have a Dream" Foundation helps low-income parents by easing the cost of college and providing their kids with an clear path through school (from third grade to college) and to their careers -- all at little or no cost to their parents. By engaging the families of the students it works with and by providing resources parents might not have otherwise been able to access, IHDF is able to help parents put their kids on track for a really great future.

You can help it by donating or volunteering. 

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On top of powering a nationwide network of food banks, Feeding America also runs school-based food pantries and provides a safe space for parents to eat with their kids. It provides billions of meals so obviously those aren't all going to be to mothers. But substantial, nutritious food is something many families can't get their hands on, and Feeding American helps parents get their kids the food they need.

Help by donating money to the national charity or food to one of the food banks it works with.

Even today, hundreds of thousands of women die during childbirth. But Every Mother Counts believes that they don't have to. Its mission is to get women the education and facilities they need to give birth safely. That can mean anything from hosting doula or nutrition classes for moms in the US to transporting women in rural Africa to their medical appointments to providing health centers the supplies they need to care for women.

EMC is always looking for donations, but you can also purchase items from its store or joining its running teams during races.

With its 100 year (and counting) commitment to providing healthcare to women, Planned Parenthood has been a blessing to moms since its inception. With its 650 health centers nationwide, PP is able to provide preventive, primary care and educational programs to millions of people every year. It also provides resources specifically for parents that help facilitate conversations with their teens about safe sex.

Donate to Planned Parenthood or help it fight legal battles by joining the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

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