Leseliey | Leseliey

Leseliey Welch, MPH, MBA

Leseliey Welch is a public health strategist, social entrepreneur, writer and professional dreamer whose guiding value is Love. As a founder of Birth Detroit and Birth Center Equity, her work is grounded in making communities stronger, healthier and more free – starting with ensuring all people have access to all safe birth options. Birth Detroit opened its first freestanding community birth center in 2024, and Birth Center Equity is a national effort to invest in Black, Indigenous, people of color-led birth centers at scale to make birth centers a real option in all communities. Leseiley has two decades of leadership experience in city, state and national health organizations, including having served as Deputy Director of Public Health for the City of Detroit. Leseliey earned her degree in Women’s Studies, Masters in Public Health, and Master in Business Administration from the University of Michigan, and is an Aspen Institute Ascend Fellow.

Writing

Birth Detroit

Co-founder & Board President

More Than a Birth Center: The Birth Detroit Care Campus

“Imagine birthing in a community birth center designed in response to the hopes, dreams, and needs of the community it calls home. Imagine safe, quality, loving care for yourself and for your growing family. Imagine Birth Detroit.”

Birth Detroit is a Black-led nonprofit organization with a mission to midwife safe, quality, loving care through pregnancy birth and beyond. Birth Detroit is a justice response to poor birth outcomes and inequitable care options in our communities. Our vision is a world where birth is safe, sacred, loving and celebrated for everyone.

Birth Detroit has been working since 2018 to make midwives and birth centers a real option for Black birthing people in our communities – and it is finally happening. We opened our first neighborhood-based midwifery clinic on Detroit’s northwest side in October 2020, and since then our team has provided prenatal care, postpartum care, ultrasounds, labs, childbirth education, infant CPR, and doula support services to hundreds of families. Together with generous donors, partners, and community members, we also raised $4M dollars, purchased land in the city, and started building. We cut the ribbon on phase one of our brand new birth center on October 13, 2024, opening the city’s first freestanding community birth center and the first of its kind Black-led birth center in Michigan. Our first Birth Detroit Birth Center baby was born in February 2025.

We are proud of these accomplishments – and there is more. Birth Detroit is more than a Birth Center. We intend to demonstrate how Black-led midwifery clinics and birth centers can be valuable assets not only to birthing people and families but also to our communities, health systems and our economy. By 2030, our multi-acre site will be home to the Birth Detroit Care Campus, growing from building one housing phase one of the birth center to additional buildings doubling the birth center in size, providing space for values-aligned care providers and partners, and developing a midwifery education and training center.

BIRTHDETROIT.COM

Birth Detroit

Birth Center Equity

Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer

Birth Center Equity (BCE) is a national catalyst for community birth center development that invests in Black, Indigenous, and people of color-led birth centers to grow and sustain community birth infrastructure for generations. We are a team of birth center founders and owners, midwives, cultural strategists, public health, and business professionals working to amplify the collective identity and power of community birth center leaders by growing a relationship-based network grounded in shared vision and values.

BCE focuses on four strategic priorities:

Community: Amplifying the collective identity and power of birth center leaders.
Capital: Making strategic investments as a “by us, for us” grant-maker with deep field expertise.
Catalyst: Advancing sustainability through business and leadership development.
Culture: Using narrative to inspire a culture that values birth centers as essential birth
Infrastructure.

Since its inception in 2020, BCE has raised over $9.8M and invested more than $5M in community birth infrastructure. The BCE network has grown to include 58 Black, Indigenous, people of color-led birth centers in varying stages of development, including 20 that are established and providing on-site birth care and 38 that are seeking resources to open and provide on-site birth care. Together BCE network birth centers care for thousands of families per year.

BCE envisions a world where midwives, families, and communities of color thrive. BCE founded and hosts National Birth Center Week (September 14-20). BCE is also designing a business studio to launch in 2026 and working on its first municipal birth center project collaboration.

BIRTHCENTEREQUITY.ORG

Writing

Poetry by Leseliey

Speaking

BOOK ME

The University of Michigan, Ford School Towsley Policymaker in Residence Dr. Abdul El-Sayed discusses reproductive and birth justice with the Co-founder of Birth Detroit and Birth Center Equity, and former Deputy Director of the Detroit Health Department, Leseliey Welch. October 2022.

Aspen Ignites: Conversations to Build a Better World is an original series from the Aspen Institute, bringing together influential voices and diverse perspectives with Institute directors and partners. This season of Aspen Ignites was recorded at the 2023 Bloomberg CityLab.

To expand on their inspiring vision and the barriers they overcame like many other leaders of color on the same path, Welch sits down with the Managing Director of Ascend at the Aspen Institute Marjorie Sims for the inaugural episode of Aspen Ignites Season 2.

ASPEN VISIONXCHANGE 2023
VisionXChange centers the Aspen Institute Ascend Fellows in provocative and inspirational conversations about transforming our nation’s hearts, minds, policies, and practices to ensure all children and families thrive. At the opening session Leseliey Welch shares about birth and beloved economy.

Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want Lecture & Community Conversation with Author, Dr. Ruha Benjamin. Facilitated by Mrs. Leseliey Welch.

Dr. Ruha Benjamin discusses her newest book, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want. In this talk, Dr.

Benjamin draws on the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and introduces a micro-vision of change—a way of looking at the everyday ways people are working to combat unjust systems and build alternatives to the oppressive status quo. Welch shares about the everyday ways Birth Detroit and Birth Center Equity are caring for families and creating community-led care systems.

Sponsored by: University of Michigan School of Public Health, School of Information, and the Ross School of Business.