Advocacy

Our grantee Planned Parenthood North Central States (PPNCS) provides health care to nearly 115,000 people and health education to more than 99,000 people across a five-state region (Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) in the United States.

With MCI’s support, PPNCS will engage in critical market research activities by using mixed methods surveys to engage critical stakeholders on their reproductive health needs and desires in hopes that this will help inform research and product development activities.

Our Consumer Research Study was the largest survey in the United States in the past decade exclusive to sexually active men ages 18-44 and focused on developing a better understanding of their attitudes, needs and motivations regarding the future of male birth control.

​Developing a keen understanding of the family planning interests of communities domestically and internationally is a critical component of our market research activities. Our support of market research activities helps our grantees better understand the needs of those they’re developing contraceptives for, while framing the demand for male birth control methods in the general public.

Our Shared Risk publication advocates for creating a new ethical framework for assessing risks and benefits for new forms of male birth control.

​Currently, the risks associated with pregnancy focus solely on the physical. As women are the only ones capable of physically bringing a baby to term, current thinking prevents a fair assessment of the risks men face when it comes to pregnancy. Our work is a necessary step towards reframing the concept of risk such that it creates a mandate for providing more and better male birth control methods.

Our Ideation Events bring together diverse, multi-disciplinary groups of subject matter experts in order to identify opportunities and challenges for the male birth control industry, while driving collaboration and innovation.

Our initial ideation events have greatly aided in developing a shared understanding of how best to move the male birth control field forward, and helped us to create a network of collaborators to champion “Team Science” as a development mandate. Our support allows participants to engage in innovative problem-solving activities as they build professional relationships to help accelerate their work.

Our Lemonade Stand Webinar Series explores various aspects of the work necessary to develop the next generation of non-hormonal, reversible male contraception.

Launched in response to the demand amongst the research community for more opportunities to engage and collaborate, our monthly webinars convene subject matter experts and the general public alike. Our support helps facilitate expanding people’s understanding of the male birth control field, demystify the science behind male contraception, and allow people to engage with each other more intimately.

Our audio series “Intended” is the only podcast solely dedicated to exploring the fascinating world of male birth control.

The series features interviews with a holistic set of stakeholders representing all facets of male birth control research and development, as well as the people seeking additional male methods of contraception in an effort to make the science of male contraceptives more accessible while also illustrating the interest in and demand for male birth control.

Our Male Reproduction & Contraception primers provide an introduction to male reproductive biology that is easy-to-understand and engaging.

The primers feature concise overviews of the individual components of the male reproductive system that afford readers the opportunity to better understand how this system works, as well as how it can be disrupted in order to develop the next generation of male contraception. Providing this foundational knowledge is critical to ensuring people’s understanding of the importance of these upcoming contraceptives.

MCI’s Non-hormonal, Reversible Male Contraception Database features all of the non-hormonal male birth control targets that have been identified to date, including those that MCI is directly supporting financially.

​The database is a “living” entity that we update in an ongoing basis in an effort to keep the research community and general public abreast of the promising work that could lead to next generation male contraceptives. It seeks to answer two of the most pressing questions in the male birth control field: “What potential male contraceptives are out there?” and “When will they be available?”

MCI’s Personas are fictional characters created to represent different user and beneficiary types that might use a product (e.g., male birth control) in a similar way.

These personas are especially useful during ideation activities for new male contraceptives and related services as they allow for the extrapolation of user preferences to inform attributes, thereby removing some of the ambiguity inherent in new product design.

MCI’s LGBTQIA+ content seeks to take into consideration the diversity of interests and needs of this community when developing the next generation of male contraception.

Today’s youth will be tomorrow’s users of these new methods. Given that around 5% of young adults in the United States today identify as either transgender or nonbinary, there is a clear need to move beyond the gender binary in order to ensure future contraceptives meet a diversity of needs and preferences. On this page, we share details about different communities within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum in an effort to ensure their needs are understood and accounted for.

We studied the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to identify ways in which new methods of male birth control can help the world achieve each of them.

​The SDGs are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”, and were set up by the United Nations to be achieved by the year 2030. ​Through our work, we provide direct connections between each of the goals and male contraception. Through this, we illustrate the potential, incredibly positive impact that new methods of male birth control can have in achieving our shared sustainability goals.

We collaborated with a team of students to develop a Digital Manual containing learning modules that empower students and the general public with the information necessary to understand the importance of male contraception.

MCI worked with Masters of Public Health students from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health to create a fun, interactive educational system in order to provide additional learning opportunities for engaged audiences. Our co-created Digital Manual allows people to engage with the information they need and learn at their own pace.