http://ms.foundation.org/about_us/our-history

Our History

In 1972, Gloria Steinem, Patricia Carbine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Marlo Thomas founded the country’s first women’s fund, the Ms. Foundation for Women.

 

Established at the height of the feminist movement, the Ms. Foundation was created to do something unheard of at the time: to deliver funding and other strategic resources to organizations that were elevating women’s voices and solutions across race and class in communities nationwide. Our founding mothers believed strongly in women’s collective power to ignite change. They also knew that women who faced discrimination and inequity in their own lives had the wisdom and expertise to advance social change that would benefit everyone. Together, they began an organization that would seed and strengthen women’s grassroots organizing around the country and strive to create a vibrant, inclusive feminist movement in which everyone’s voice was visible, valued and heard—a movement to thrive for generations to come.

 

Over 35 years ago, in a small office in New York City, the Ms. Foundation was started with proceeds from Ms. Magazine and royalties from the multimedia concept Free To Be... You And Me. In 1976, Ms. Foundation grants totaled $87,175. Gradually, with the visionary and generous support of numerous individuals, foundations and corporations, we grew into an organization that today delivers over $4 million in grants each year. In 1986 we established an endowment; by December 2009 it stood at nearly $24 million.

 

Relationship to Ms. Magazine

 

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work

   

CAAAV organizes across diverse, low-wage, and poor Asian communities in New York City, to expose and struggle against violence with the goal of building community capacity to exercise self-determination. Building coalitions enables CAAAV to contribute to a unified strategy for a broader, multi-racial and multi-issue movement for social change. Learn more and view video

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That the Ms. Foundation would be the beneficiary of my first million-dollar gift seemed only natural. Over the years, as a donor, I grew to learn the importance of the foundation, not only the people who worked there but also those it helped benefit...I saw the genius of the cross-race, cross-class approach to grant-making...that places at the decision-making table not just the women with money but also women who may have little money but who, as grassroots activists, know just how it can be best invested in the community. Read more

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Ms. Foundation for Women, 12 MetroTech Center, 26th Fl, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Telephone:(212) 742-2300|Fax: (212) 742-1653|Email: info@ms.foundation.org