Founded in 1992, the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding (Tanenbaum) is the leader in providing practical programs that address verbal and physical conflicts perpetuated in the name of religion. It is a non-sectarian not-for-profit organization whose programs are skill-based and change how people address differences and how they treat one another in areas of armed conflict, workplaces and schools.

Research demonstrates that women often serve as agents of coalescence within societies, using unique skills to survive hardships and avert disaster for their families and communities. Their societal ties make them particularly effective in all aspects of conflict resolution. Yet women are consistently excluded from the “tables of diplomacy,” often left out of the conversations on how to address and resolve the conflicts that cause them so much harm. Today, less than one-third of the individuals recognized as “official” peace workers are women. Only two of Tanenbaum’s 19 Peacemakers in Action are women: Sakena Yacoobi of the Afghan Institute of Learning, and Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, a member of the Society of Friends in South Africa and an active leader in the African National Congress (ANC); both of these women were awarded in 2002. In part this is because the Center had received few nominations for religiously motivated women peacemakers until this year. For example, last year, only two of 25 nominees were women—and one did not meet the program’s criteria due to her apparent atheism. The dearth of women nominees did not reflect their lack of involvement in peacemaking. Rather, it is because their crucial efforts are regularly overlooked and given less value than those of their male counterparts.  The Sister Fund grant went to supporting the Middle East-North Africa Women's Peace Initiative project.