— Our Mission
Access,
Equity, & Empowerment for Every Family
DoulaBrella Institute is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding equitable access to birth and postpartum doula training and care.
About UsThrough subsidized training, workforce development, advocacy, and partnerships, we help build maternal care systems that better support families, strengthen communities, and improve outcomes for those too often left underserved.
A Nonprofit Committed to Equitable Care, Building Careers & Partnerships
DoulaBrella Institute is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to birth and postpartum doula training and care for the communities that need it most. We invest in people who are too often left outside the profession, and we open doors to meaningful careers, stronger representation, and more equitable care.
Our work sits at the heart of a larger ecosystem. While our peer organizations focus on professional training and family matching, the Institute carries the mission of equity. We fund subsidized doula training, support doula workforce development in underserved communities, and build partnerships with hospitals, funders, and policymakers. Everything we do returns to one simple idea. When care becomes accessible to all, whole communities grow stronger, healthier, and more connected.
Learn more about the broader DoulaBrella ecosystem at doulabrella.com.
DoulaBrella InstituteThe Future We Envision
Our Mission
To expand access to doula training and care for everyone, breaking down systemic barriers so every family can be supported by someone who understands their story.
Our Vision
A world where compassionate, culturally competent, and evidence-based doula support is available to every family during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, regardless of income or geography.
Our Values
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We place the family at the center of the birth ecosystem, where doulas, providers, and communities work together to meet each family's unique needs.
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Being a doula transforms lives and becomes part of who we are. We lead with love, understanding, and empathy, and we ask our community to do the same.
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We work to remove the financial and systemic barriers that decide who gets to serve and who gets to be supported. Diverse representation in birth work is essential.
Local Roots to National Change
DoulaBrella Institute began with one woman's belief that support should never depend on what a family can afford.
Gina began her journey through her personal experiences across three births. After feeling overwhelmed and isolated during her first birth, she sought support and evidence-based care that aligned with her values. Encountering similar systemic difficulties during her second birth, she pursued a different approach for her third, resulting in an empowering and respectful experience for herself, her partner, and her baby. This transformation inspired her to help families navigate their options and access the care and support they deserve. With 15 years of experience supporting families as a birth and postpartum doula, alongside her volunteer work within the Western New York refugee community, Gina has seen firsthand both the power of compassionate, collaborative care and the systemic barriers that keep it out of reach for so many.
Insight into Action
Feeling overwhelmed and isolated as a new doula, Gina recognized the need for mutual support and community. She founded the Buffalo Doula Collective to build support for doulas and a network for families. Through supporting births in various settings-hospital, home, and birthing centers, she soon understood that doula training required more than learning comfort measures and emotional support. She found it also demanded a deeper understanding of informed consent and the tools to empower families to advocate for their values and goals.
Doulas can help create truly family-centered care, build compassionate collaborations in all care models, and facilitate respectful, empowering experiences anywhere families choose to birth, and for any family seeking support. To bridge gaps in care, she focused on building compassionate collaborations within healthcare systems and nurturing a community rooted in inclusivity, cultural competency, and authentic connection through the Life Cycle Doulas training program. As this work expanded, so has the vision. Together with thecommunity of doulas and birth professionals whom she has either trained or collaborated with, there has emerged a clear need to separate the mission-driven side of our work from the professional services side.
Rebranding
That vision took shape as the for-profit training and matching services became DoulaBrella and DoulaBrella Network, while the nonprofit heart of the work became DoulaBrella Institute. What began with local roots in Buffalo, New York, is now growing into a broader national model, one designed to reach communities well beyond where it started. Today, Gina Durant and her daughter Amelia Varney jointly share a commitment to DoulaBrella. As a mother-daughter team, they bring a shared purpose, a deep personal connection, and complementary strengths to their work. Their leadership embodies the essence of DoulaBrella: a dedication to care that is deeply personal, rooted in the community, with a pledge to create lasting change.
What Sets Us Apart
A Distinctive, Evidence-Based, Family-Centered Approach
Many organizations offer doula training. Fewer build access, equity, long-term support, and systems change into the foundation of that work. That difference shapes every part of what we do.
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Our evidence-based doula training is tailored to the real needs of underserved communities. We prepare doulas for professional certification and Medicaid-aligned coursework while equipping them to serve families who share their language, culture, and lived experience.
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Through subsidized doula training, workforce development, and advocacy, we remove the financial and systemic barriers that keep care and opportunity out of reach. Our doulas grow within a warm, inclusive community built on mentoring and mutual encouragement. That connection helps prevent burnout and sustains long, meaningful careers.
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DoulaBrella Institute is strengthened by the larger ecosystem around it. DoulaBrella provides professional doula training and ongoing community, while DoulaBrella Network connects families with the right professional doula for their needs. Together, this connected model helps us strengthen the full circle of community-based care.
Care with CompassionThe Communities at the Heart of Our Work
Our work centers on the people who have too often been overlooked. We serve diverse communities, each with distinct needs and a shared right to compassionate care.
Aspiring doulas from underserved communities
We open the path to professional doula training for BIPOC, LGBTQ+, indigenous, urban, rural, and financially disadvantaged individuals who want to serve their neighbors and build a career close to home.
Families in underserved communities
We help families find culturally competent, compassionate support, so no one has to navigate pregnancy, birth, or the postpartum months alone.
Nonprofit funders
We collaborate with foundations, grant-makers, and individual donors who truly care about health equity, doula workforce development, and stronger outcomes for mothers, babies, and families.
Hospitals, insurers, and healthcare partners
We partner with hospitals, insurers, maternal healthcare providers, and healthcare systems working to improve patient outcomes, raise overall satisfaction, and advance maternal health equity through trusted, professionally trained doulas.
Your Generosity Advances Three Connected PillarsWhere Your Support Makes a Difference
Subsidized Training & Community Access
We combine professional training, mentoring, and an ongoing support community to help individuals build sustainable careers. The result is a community-based workforce, greater access to maternal health care, and a real path to economic mobility.
Workforce Development & Career Preparation
We provide scholarships and subsidized doula training that remove financial barriers to certification. This ensures diverse representation in birth work and brings quality birth and postpartum doula care into communities where it has been hardest to find.
Advocacy & Partnerships
We collaborate with hospitals, insurers, and policymakers to integrate doula services into healthcare and advance systemic change. Together, we build a family-centered care model that is meant to connect providers rather than divide them.
Voices From Our Community
I was searching for a path that connects my healthcare experience with more impactful, hands-on, and entrepreneurial opportunities in patient care. From my first phone chat with Gina Durant, I felt welcomed and supported by her community, even before my training!
— Jolly (North Tonawanda, NY)
Frequently Asked Questions
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A doula is a trained professional who provides emotional, physical, and informational support to individuals and families during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. Our doulas go a step further by not only serving as steady guides within the birth team and by providing evidence-based options, educating families to advocate for their personal values, and building respectful relationships within their birthing team.
Our doulas bring love and empathy to every room. By fostering collaboration and connection within the birth ecosystem and by placing each family at the center of their experience, families navigate their births and postpartum experience with respect and confidence.
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DoulaBrella is our for-profit training hub and community, and DoulaBrella Network is our family matching service. DoulaBrella Institute is the nonprofit arm. We focus on access and equity through subsidized doula training, doula workforce development, and advocacy for underserved communities.
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Our scholarships support aspiring doulas from communities that face systemic and financial barriers, including BIPOC, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, urban, rural, and financially disadvantaged individuals. If you feel called to this work but cost stands in your way, we encourage you to reach out and start a conversation.
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We partner with hospitals, insurers, and healthcare systems to strengthen care. We provide group training for nurses and staff, trained doulas for NICU and postpartum support, and collaborative, family-centered care models designed to improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.
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Your donations fund scholarships, mentoring programs, and subsidized doula care for families who could not otherwise afford it. Every gift helps build a more equitable and representative birth and postpartum care system.
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Yes. Our programs are designed to support professional certification pathways and include the coursework and cultural competency training needed for relevant Medicaid reimbursement requirements. We ground our curriculum in evidence-based standards and continually adapt it to reflect current best practices.
Ready to Build Something Meaningful Together?
At DoulaBrella, We Are.
Whether you fund the mission, partner in care, or feel called to serve, there is a place for you in this work, and a family somewhere who will feel the difference. Together, we can move closer to a future defined by access, equity, and community.