Dear Friends,

Welcome to The Sister Fund’s Web site. We are committed to lifting up the passionate voices of progressive women of faith and funding their visionary activism.

My first encounter with women’s social justice work was in 1973, when a domestic violence shelter in Dallas asked me to join their board. Visiting that shelter, I learned how few resources existed for women in crisis. Meanwhile, I too was struggling with access to resources, though in a very different manner. It was one day in 1979 that my sister, Swanee Hunt, called to ask me if I had read that month’s edition of Forbes Magazine. “Go find it!” she insisted. “Turn to page 30 and call me back.” I did. There, on that page, I saw my own name, and beside it, my net worth.

My jaw dropped.

Swanee and I discovered that our father’s lawyers were managing the stocks in our name, so much so that we didn’t even know our net worth. They had no plans for including us in strategies for distribution. They wanted the money to stay safely tucked away. For the next few years, Swanee and I labored to gain appropriate access to our money. We both felt that money in the Hunt family should not only reflect our dad’s desire to strengthen the oil company, but it should also help lift up the voices of women, like our mother, who had so much wisdom to offer the world as well.

Once Swanee and I gained more access to family resources, we both committed ourselves to advancing the women’s funding movement. We co-founded Hunt Alternatives Fund; but over time, the part of the Fund that I ran became The Sister Fund. I went on to co-found the Dallas Women's Foundation, followed by the Women’s Funding Network and the New York Women's Foundation. Recently, the Dallas Women’s Foundation established the Mustard Seed Fund, and my nieces oversee its giving.

Women’s foundations were my entry into the feminist movement. Through funding, I developed great passion for lifting up women’s voices and issues. However, I had a secret: I was also a Christian. Over the years, I struggled to reconcile my deep appreciation for my Baptist roots and my wild adoration for the feminist movement, which was largely distrustful of religion. Then, in 1999, I began studies at Union Theological Seminary.

While performing research for my PhD, I discovered something that changed my life and the trajectory of this foundation. The Seneca Falls Convention is usually referred to as the original feminist convention. But I stumbled upon another significant convention 13 years earlier that had been organized by women of faith. They were the ones that issued the first public call for women’s rights. They did so compelled by Scripture.

This was evidence that faith can be a powerful impetus for courageous social, and gender, justice. In 2004, I wrote Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance, the thesis of which is reflected in the grants of The Sister Fund, which focuses on faith-based activism for women and girls.

Today, Kanyere Eaton, who runs The Sister Fund, joins me in seeking out women of faith who work with passion, power and love. It’s such exciting work. We take seriously our role as funders and strive to find a way to truly become "sisters" to our grantees and their work.

Enjoy our Web site. We hope you’ll be as inspired by what progressive women of faith make possible through their activism as we are.

In sisterhood,

Helen LaKelly Hunt

An Edited Excerpt From Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance by Helen LaKelly Hunt

Faith and feminism can work together to achieve the same ends. Both Christianity and feminism offer a prophetic vision for the future by inviting the transformation of the individual and of society. The two may be experienced differently, but they point us in the same direction.

Whenever we act for the common good, we are engaging in spiritual action. Feminist activism fostering justice, equality, and love embodies the prophetic, powerful verse in Scripture: "Let justice roll down like waters..."

Click here to order a copy of Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance for individual use.

Click here to order multiple copies of Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance for an event.