I think starvation, poverty, seeing your children starving, now that is marginalizing. And mind you, this is now a major strategy, it has been written about in the Wall Street Journal, it has helped men, families, all over America. But if women were not pushing these ideas forward, it would not have been written about in the Wall Street Journal, and this is part of our history. These things have happened thanks to donors who focus on women s issues like Chris Wilson, and groups like Women in Foundations, who wanted to increase the amount of money for women and women's issues as well as to give more power and elevate women in the foundation community in the late 70s and early 80s. Today, half of the heads of foundations are women.
Many women head up their own foundations, family foundations, and community foundations.
In the bigger foundations, many women are program officers. But one little problem persists, from when I came 15 years ago. That s the small amount of money dedicated to women. That is really slow growth, in terms of resistance to dedicating money to women. Fortunately, what has come along to change this pattern is the support of women like Chris Wilson, or Helen Hunt, or Tracy Gary in San Francisco, who have actively decided to start women's foundations, most modeled upon the Ms. Foundation, I m proud to say.