• Assets: $33,445,282 (2006)
• Grants Received: $8,176,093 (2006)
• Grants Awarded: $3,599,885 (2006)

In 1972, Patricia Carbine, Marlo Thomas, Gloria Steinem, and Letty Cottin Pogrebin created the Ms. Foundation for Women (MFW) to distribute profits from Ms. magazine to grassroots women's organizations. In 1974 the Foundation separated from the magazine and established its own grant program from the profits of the Thomas, Pogrebin, et al. multimedia venture, Free to Be . . . You and Me. 

Focusing its philanthropy on women who face economic hardship, MFW's self-defined mission is to "direc[t] resources of all kinds to cutting-edge projects that nurture girls' leadership skills, protect the health and safety of women, and provide low-income women with the tools to lift themselves and their families out of poverty." 

MFW makes grants in the following areas:

(a) Health and Safety: This encompasses birth control, sex education programs, AIDS education programs for women, abortion demands, and advocacy for partial-birth abortions; the Ms. Foundation supports the unrestricted right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand for all women. Moreover, viewing male violence against women as a pervasive cultural phenomenon in the United States, this program emphasizes the need "to speak out loud about the violence in their lives."  

(b) Economic Security: This program is a conduit for grants to small business start-ups by female entrepreneurs and, more notably, programs designed to promote an "understanding [of] the links between economic security, work, and the broader movement towards social change nationally and internationally." Says MFW,  "Low-income women, who often lack the resources and training they need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty, will take the hardest hits from our current economic downturn and conservative political climate." 

(c) Girls, Young Women, and Leadership: Through this program, MFW established the now-common "Take Our Daughters to Work Day."

(d) Cross Cutting Programs: Under this rubric, the Foundation supports the Democracy Funding Circle, an organization specifically established to oppose the political and social gains made by conservatives since the Reagan revolution.

(e) Rapid Response Policy Fund : This program makes grants to a variety of political organizations whose efforts address what the Foundation sees as the widespread and enduring flaws of American society: racism, sexism, homophobia, and the violation of civil rights and liberties.

An advocate of expanded welfare-state policies, MFW was outspoken in its objection to welfare reform, as evidenced by its passionate opposition to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton. History would reproach MFW on this matter, however. In 2000, the Clinton administration's Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala stated,  "After four years, we have strong evidence that welfare reform is working." By May 2002, there were 2.3 million fewer children living in poverty than there had been in 1996.

A member of the National Council of Women's Organizations, MFW receives foundation money from (among others) the AT&T Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation; the Fannie Mae Foundation; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the American Express Foundation; the Moriah Fund; the Sara Lee Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Surdna Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the Public Welfare Foundation; the Sara Lee Foundation; the Open Society Institute, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America; the Verizon Foundation; the Scherman Fouldation; the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Turner Foundation.

Among the Ms. Foundation's corporate sponsors are: Merrill Lynch & Co.; American Express; Gap Inc.; Lifetime Television; New York Life Insurance Company; Chase Manhattan Bank; Disney/ABC Cable Networks; MetLife; Amoco; AT&T; Citigroup; BankAmerica; Exxon; Sara Lee; Travelers; and Whirlpool.

MFW's current President and CEO is Sara K. Gould. Prior to her appointment in July 2004, Ms. Gould served as MFW's Executive Director. She also worked with the Women's Action Alliance (WAA), one-time sinecure of Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem, among others, which was dissolved in 1997 after a 26-year run of revolving directors and brushes with bankruptcy. WAA sponsored such projects as the Non-Sexist Childhood Development Project and the Computer Equity Expert Project.  

A former MFW President and CEO was Marie C. Wilson, homecoming queen-turned-lesbian activist, friend of Hollywood leftists Kathleen Turner and Janeane Garofalo, and vocal supporter of former Senator Carol Moseley Braun. During Ms. Wilson's lengthy tenure (from 1984 to 2004) at the helm of MFW, the Foundation grew from an endowment of $500,000 to $11 million. Ms. Wilson currently heads the White House Project, in which she hopes to train 1,000 women to be political leaders.

MFW endorsed the Million Mom March, a May 2000 anti-gun rally in Washington, DC that drew some 750,000 participants and has since evolved into a national organization with the same name. Today Million Mom March is a member group of America Votes, a national coalition of 33 grassroots, get-out-the-vote organizations. America Votes is one of the seven entities forming the administrative core of the Democrat Shadow Party. Among the causes America Votes promotes are environmental extremism, unregulated immigration (see Open Borders), and the agendas of the teachers' unions. By contrast, it opposes the Patriot Act and gun-ownership rights. The coalition's most pressing objective in 2004 was to defeat George W. Bush in the Presidential election. These are ideals to which MFW similarly subscribes.

Among the many recipients of Ms. Foundation grants are: the Tides Center; the Center for Community Change; Amnesty International; the Children's Defense Fund; the Institute for Social and Economic Development; Native Americans for Community Action; the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice; the Funders for Gay & Lesbian Issues; Unite for Dignity; the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR); the Latino Issues Forum; the Utah Progressive Network; the Abortion Access Project; African American Women Evolving; the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; the Kentucky Reproductive Health Network; the Missouri Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; the North Carolina Lambda Youth Network; Georgians for Choice; the McHenry County Citizens for Choice Education Fund; Migrant Health Promotion; Working for Equality and Economic Liberation; Young Women United; the Alaska Pro-Choice Alliance; Planned Parenthood; the California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom; the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL); the National Immigration Law Center; the Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity; the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States; the AIDS Foundation; the Capital District African American Coalition on AIDS; the Women's Resource Center; the Center for Human Rights Education; the National Organization of Women (NOW) Legal Defense Fund; Sista II Sista; Stop It Now!; V-Day Until the Violence Stops; the Urban Justice Center; the Colorado Progressive Coalition; Sisters In Action for Power; the Young Women's Project; the Alliance for Justice; the National Women's Law Center; the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action Education Fund; the Western Prison Project; the Progressive Media Project; Project Vote; the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada; the National Council of Women's Organizations; Women's Edge; the Women's Funding Network; the Center for Women in Politics; Choice USA; Sisterhood is Global; the Voters for Choice Action Fund; and the Third Wave Foundation.