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“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” – Helen Keller
The Agency Model of Tucson Doulas
When founding Tucson Doulas, we gave careful thought to the agency’s financial sustainability. As the first doula agency in southern Arizona, it was necessary for to us to build a solid foundation. Typically in this profession, sustainability often receives the least attention. Our work puts food on our family’s table and allows us to pay our bills. Our fees enable us to financially sustain our families and the families of the professionals who sub-contract with us. We have well-established individual practices with long-standing, positive relationships and experience in the Tucson birth community.
We have also seen many birth professionals come and go due to being unable to run successful businesses or maintain the rigorous lifestyle that life on-call demands. Three is a keen awareness that our community will be better served and supported when there are MANY great birth professionals instead of burning out and leaving behind their passion for this work because they couldn’t make a paycheck.
We recognize the value of our services and believe that they will be available for more families in our community when doulas can be doulas without the pressure of all the other “stuff” involved in independent practice. We knew that we had to create something that would benefit our subcontractors and our clients to make that worthwhile.
The Benefits For Our Team and Clients
The agency model allows our doulas, childbirth educators, and placenta specialists to focus solely on their clients. They don’t have to worry about running a business. This will enable them to focus all of their attention on the part they love most: Serving our community’s growing families.
Under our model, clients get birth professionals who are excited, refreshed, and supported 100% by us so that they can extend that to their clients. Our birth doulas work in teams so that it is a sustainable workload for them, and we charge a reasonable rate to the client and allow us to pay our doulas a living/sustainable wage. For just a little more than the going rate for a birth doula in solo practice, the client gets TWO experienced and certified doulas available to them from the moment they contract with us.
We compensate our postpartum doulas, placenta specialists, and childbirth educators at or above the local market rate. We are proud that they make above our state’s living wage guidelines (and more than DOUBLE our state’s minimum wage). Since we have a crystal clear business structure, our subcontractors know what to expect, and our clients get the very best every time. Our clients know that their doula or specialist has support and accountability and have the assurance that they have chosen to hire a top-notch professional team to walk with them through this transformative time in their lives.
The “Why” Behind it All 
Angela, Eva, and the Tucson Doulas team love what they do and have hearts for serving growing families and the Tucson community. It’s what we have done for our entire adult lives. It’s why Tucson Doulas was created. To support the community in the significant ways we imagined, there needs to be a financially sustainable and profitable business model to feed into our community-based passions.
How many more people can we serve when we have a fully functional, fully FUNDED non-profit? Short answer: A TON more! We are limited when we’re relying on our individual finances and efforts. But by creating a profitable business, we’ll be able to give back in huge ways to our community. Instead of helping one or two families here or there, and as resources allow, we can help many more consistently. THAT is our bigger vision, and everything we do with Tucson Doulas moves us closer to achieving that goal.
Our Big Goals
Every aspect of our business plan was carefully considered and crafted to work toward two goals.
- To serve other birth workers in our community.
- By creating an agency where birth professionals can do what they love and not burn out.
- By being paid sustainable wages. Being able to work reasonable hours and not having to handle the business side of things if they don’t want. We are making it possible for more women to do this work long-term, support their families, and focus on the part of birth work they love – Working with clients.
- By creating an agency where birth professionals can do what they love and not burn out.
- To serve other women in our community.
- We love our clients! We also see many women and families who need us. But they are not in a situation where they can afford us. We care deeply about them too! With a financially stable, sustainable, and profitable agency, we’ll be able to generate funding. The funding is needed to serve more families than ever before.
- We specifically want to provide childbirth education and doula services to the refugee community and teen moms. As our resources allow we will expand from there. Each client who hires Tucson Doulas plays a part in helping us provide these services.
- We love our clients! We also see many women and families who need us. But they are not in a situation where they can afford us. We care deeply about them too! With a financially stable, sustainable, and profitable agency, we’ll be able to generate funding. The funding is needed to serve more families than ever before.
The bottom line: We have the heart for serving women in our community. We have much bigger dreams than what we can achieve independently. By working together, we can see our vision become a reality. We are so proud of both Tucson Doulas and Desert Doulas. There are big things in store for the Tucson birth community.
4 Responses
Elisabeth Lighty
Such a strong, clear vision.
Elizabeth Luke
Without big goals you can never reach them! Great job!
Sara
Tucson Doulas obviously has high standards of excellence and professionalism. Love it!
Mary
Thank you for this post. I have been thinking about the pros and cons of partnerships recently, and this post demonstrates a clear bottom line. Your clients are lucky to have you!