The Ms. Foundation for Women

Connections 1

Description

The Ms. Foundation for Women is a non-profit organization for women in the United States, which had a deep commitment to diversity and was founded in 1972 by Gloria Steinem, Patricia Carbine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Marlo Thomas. The organization was created to deliver strategic resources to groups which elevated women's and girl's voices and solutions across race and class in communities nationwide, working to identify and support emerging and established groups poised to act when and where change is needed. Its grants — paired with skills-building, networking and other strategic opportunities — enable organizations to advance women's grassroots solutions across race and class and to build social movements within and across three areas: Economic Justice, Reproductive Justice and Safety. The organization also focuses its lobbying efforts on the state-level around those three areas.

Founding

Steinem, Carbine, Pogrebin and Thomas wanted to foster the collective power of women and believed that women who faced discrimination and inequity in their own lives had the wisdom and expertise to advance social change that would benefit everyone. The Ms. Foundation was planned to seed and strengthen women's grassroots organizing around the country to create an inclusive movement in which everyone's voice was visible and heard. The Ms. Foundation for Women was created as a separate but related entity to Ms. magazine. The original intent was that Ms. magazine's profits would be redistributed to the national women's movement. It quickly became apparent, however, that the Ms. Foundation would have to raise funds and provide direction for itself; and that for Ms. magazine to survive, it would also have to sustain itself. Since 1987 the Ms. Foundation and Ms. Magazine have been separate entities: Ms. Magazine is published by the Feminist Majority Foundation.