Press Releases

With gifts from five dollars to $1 million, the Fund is pleased to announce that it surpassed its $3-million goal and raised $3.5 million to support women and girls’ causes throughout Chester County. Funds raised will be evenly distributed to the Fund’s three endowments for grants, operations and girls’ programs. The Fund reached an historic milestone this year with the campaign, becoming the first women’s fund in the country with an endowment specifically for girls programs.

Philanthropists and sisters, Ambassador Swanee Hunt and Helen LaKelly Hunt in partnership with the Women’s FundingNetwork (www.wfnet.org), today announced the launch of Women Moving Millions, a groundbreaking initiative to inspire gifts of one million dollars and above to effect lasting social change through improving the lives of women and girls. The initiative’s goal is to raise $150 million by April 2009, which will propel the collective grant-making and assets of women’s foundations worldwide over the $1 billion mark.

UNIFEM, the women’s fund at the United Nations, and the Women’s Funding Network, a global network of 124 women’s funds, have called for greater investment in equal opportunities for women as a key to combating global poverty. The UNIFEM-Women’s Funding Network collaboration is in response to increasing evidence that women hold critical — yet often untapped — potential in helping to improve the economic prospects of communities and societies as a whole. The partnership will centre on a public awareness campaign on October 17, World Poverty Day.