Our Story

From Vision to Campaign

In 2005, while documenting the history of visionary donors pledging a million dollars or more to women and girls, Helen LaKelly Hunt received an important call. Her sister, Ambassador Swanee Hunt, made a grand financial pledge for Helen’s use to “raise the bar on women’s giving.” To Swanee’s pledge, Helen added one of her own, and this spark catalyzed a groundbreaking global funding initiative, Women Moving Millions.

Two years later, in 2007, Helen and Swanee officially launched the Women Moving Millions (WMM) campaign with Helen as Founder and Swanee as Catalyst. This campaign sought to build a global collective of committed, purposeful women making unprecedented gifts of $1 million or more for the advancement of women and girls. Raising funds as well as their voices, this campaign inspired other donors to join them. Launched with Co-Founder Chris Grumm, then CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, history was made when $181 million was pledged by 102 donors to 41 WFN member funds.

From Campaign to Community

After celebrating this groundbreaking campaign, a handful of women came together and said, “What’s next?” Knowing the need to mobilize greater resources for women and girls did not end with the campaign, the plan to move from campaign to community was seeded. A passionate and purposeful group of members stepped into leadership and created the plan to form an ongoing organization. Those same members committed their financial resources, and along with a $1.5 million grant from J.P. Morgan Chase, Women Moving Millions, Inc. was born. Jacki Zehner became the founding Board President with Jessica Houssian later becoming the organization’s first Executive Director. In 2017, in light of her extensive contributions to the organization, Jacki Zehner was named Co-Founder of WMM alongside Helen LaKelly Hunt.

Women Moving Millions Today

Today, WMM is the largest community of individuals giving $1 million or more to resource women and girls and has elevated the power of women’s philanthropy to accelerate progress toward gender equality. Our mission is to catalyze unprecedented resources for the advancement of women and girls. As a growing global community, our members have collectively made bold commitments of nearly $1 billion and are using the power of their voice and influence to inspire others to invest with a gender lens.

We are grateful for our visionary founders, members, and partners who understood the power and transformative potential of this community to change the world.