Ms. Foundation for Women

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The Ms. Foundation for Women is a non-profit organization established by Ms. magazine in 1972.^[1] The foundation's best-known initiatives include the establishment of Take Our Daughters To Work Day — known since 2003 as "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" — and the 1970s multimedia project Free to Be... You and Me. The organization also makes grants to local, national, and international organizations serving women, girls, and issues relating to women and girls, as well as funding microloans for small women-owned enterprises.^[2]

The foundation has held an annual program called the Gloria Awards (named for Ms. founder Gloria Steinem) for 19 years as of 2007.^[3] In 2005, the foundation added the grant program "Public Voices, Public Policy: Realizing the Power of Women of Color" with the purpose "to diversify the voices and leaders in public policy, and to promote women of color leaders who advocate on behalf of their communities in national, state and local policy arenas."^[4]

Charity Navigator, an organization evaluating the efficiency with which donated dollars are employed in the cause to which they are donated — as opposed to going to administrative and other overhead costs — assesses the Ms. Foundation's overall efficiency as 47.88%, meaning that slightly less than half of all dollars donated go to fund the programs of the Foundation.^[5]