PROFAMILIA is a Colombian family planning organization whose mission is to serve lower income groups. In order to attain contraceptive prevalence in this group equal to that for the more advantaged clients of PROFAMILIA, the organization has created a means of subsidizing some family planning services.
To do this, PROFAMILIA has diversified the services it offers to clients to include medical-surgical services other than family planning but related to reproduction. PROFAMILIA has developed services for infertility, pap smears, pregnancy tests, gynecology, urology, diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, clinical laboratory services, outpatient surgical services, etc. In providing these services, PROFAMILIA has been able to make a modest profit, which it has used to subsidize the delivery of family planning services.
Although PROFAMILIA is presently only 50 percent financially self-sufficient, almost 60 percent of that amount is derived from profits generated by providing diversified services, 25 percent from contraceptives sold through social marketing, and 15 percent from other sources.