The Evolution Of The Sister Fund

All living things must evolve if they are to endure. The Sister Fund's own continuing evolution, the natural development of its mission, its action and its role as a foundation, began a decade and a half ago. The foundation's inspired beginnings in 1993 were shaped by a diverse board of directors program, an eight-pronged funding strategy and a broad spectrum of woman-focused grantee partners working in the five boroughs of New York City and across the nation. We funded social justice work, AIDS awareness and prevention, cultural empowerment and a number of other woman-centered priorities. However, we saw them all linked by a common theme — spirituality.

In the early days, we asked all of our grantees to describe the spiritual underpinnings of their work. They wrote and spoke about what was transformative in their practice—both for the staff and the program participants—sometimes using the language of “call.” Grantees who worked with incarcerated women and their children, or immigrant women who needed job skills, often felt called to their work by the Spirit in the same way that some clergy describe their calls to parish ministry. Other grantee leaders described the need to honor the inherent value of all humans, especially women and girls. They described working long hours with modest salaries because they were convinced that their program participants were as worthy of loving investment as women and girls of privileged backgrounds. These “spirituality statements” were deeply inspiring for the staff and board of The Sister Fund, and played a significant role in shaping our further development as a foundation.

In 2003, we began to explore the relationship between spiritual values, social justice activism and progressive religious faith more deeply. In order to streamline our efforts in the midst of this expansion, we began accepting only solicited proposals and focusing on women-led nonprofits whose justice work had a foundation of religious faith. We worked closely with our grantee partners, providing them with technical assistance workshops and creating forums in which to meet other funders. As we focused, we also expanded. The daughters of our founder became more involved in our work and we began to give internationally.