Meet Our Legacy Donors

Our donors are giving back in extraordinary ways. Through their generous plans, they enable PAI to protect and advance sexual and reproductive health and rights around the globe and create a world of opportunity for women and girls everywhere.

Please consider leaving your own legacy to protect sexual and reproductive health and rights for many years to come.

My deep commitment to reproductive rights goes back more than half of a century, to my senior year in college when abortion was still illegal across the United States and effective contraception was largely unavailable to unmarried women. Like millions of desperate women in many parts of the world today, I resorted to a clandestine abortion — a terrifying and almost fatal experience.

A year later, on my first trip to Africa, I came face-to-face again with the tragedy of a botched abortion when a young woman sharing my room in a bush hospital in Mali died of abortion-related complications.

After earning a Ph.D. in international studies and working for a few years in domestic policy and politics, in 1975, I took a job as a public interest lobbyist for international family planning at what is now PAI, where I would remain until 1993. That was the beginning of a 40-year career in women’s reproductive health and rights — the cause already so close to my heart.

Beginning in 1995, I joined a global movement to make emergency contraception a standard in women’s health care and push the pharmaceutical industry to bring a dedicated product to market. Two years later I decided to tackle the issue using a different approach and left my 20-year career as a public interest lobbyist to start a tiny pharmaceutical company — something for which I had no obvious qualifications. The following year we succeeded in bringing Plan B emergency contraception to market.

Nine years later, the still tiny — but now profitable — company was sold, which is what enables me to leave a legacy gift for PAI. I distributed half of my share of the proceeds to the company’s largely nonprofit investors and put half in a charitable remainder trust. I receive annual payments to supplement my retirement income. It feels good to be able to set aside this pot of money to leave a legacy for the reproductive rights community.

A portion of my trust will go to PAI. I do so with the confidence that PAI, with its more than 50-year track record, will be around for many years after I am gone, and that it will continue to be a key player in the ever-challenging battle for reproductive rights.

I will leave the rest of my assets, including retirement funds, to my family — something we all want to do.

I encourage others to think about the causes that have mattered to them during their lifetimes and be purposeful in planning their legacy for a better world.

Sharon Camp, Ph.D., legacy donor