New Video Donor Tool Features Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation

We are thrilled to announce the launch of a short, motivational video about how women today are making history through their giving. The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, Great Plains Productions and Chicken & Egg Pictures partnered to develop this fun, 4-minute video with support from The Sister Fund. The video is designed to inspire new donors to join a hands-on/hands-with funding movement dedicated to equity, justice and the strategic use of money for women and girls.

Click here to watch the short video. And after you've watched it, pass it on to help it go viral! This new donor cultivation tool can also be uploaded onto your own organizational website and downloaded and shared on hand-held items such as an iPhone or iPad. We hope it will be the beginning of a new body of evidence that women of wealth can change history through bold and focused giving.

T
his short video was inspired by historian Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner who brilliantly determined to preserve and document the writings of suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. In the 19th century, Gage recognized that women of means funded their husbands' alma maters, churches and the ballet, but rarely stepped forward to fund their suffragist sisters. Imagine how different the world would be today if women had begun funding women sooner!

The video features original animation designed by award winning animator Emily Hubley and was directed by Peabody award winning filmmaker and Chicken & Egg Pictures Co-Founder, Judith Helfand. Fast-paced, animated yet urgent, it shows how today's women's funding movement, and new giving trends like Women Moving Millions (WMM), are literally changing the course of history.

A new form of feminism has emerged: Bold philanthropy for women and girls. Let's celebrate--Women are making history-Matilda would be so proud! For more information, contact the WMM Donor Office at (212) 337-3343.

Sincerely,

Helen LaKelly Hunt and Chris Grumm

The video's partners:

The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation incorporated as a NYS educational foundation in 2000, and the following year received non-profit status under the leadership of Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner. Within nine short months, the Gage Foundation raised the money to purchase the Gage Home in 2002. They are currently in the midst of a capital campaign to create programs and exhibits for the restored Gage Home as the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center of Education and Dialogue. The house will hold the grand opening of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center on October 8-10, 2010.

Chicken & Egg Pictures is a hybrid film fund and non-profit production company, founded in 2005 by award winning independent producer/directors Julie Parker Benello, Wendy Ettinger and Judith Helfand. This unique philanthropic organization matches strategically timed financial support with mentorship, creative collaboration and community-building opportunities. Over the past five years, they've provided over $1.5 million in grants and 3,000 mentorship hours to women filmmakers whose diverse voices represent a range of lived experiences and realities that have the power to change the world as we know it.

Great Plains Productions is a communications company formed by Carey Graeber in 2001 that produces broadcast documentaries and communications for corporations, government entities and non-profit organizations. Graeber is currently working with Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner and the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation on a documentary that will help bring Gage's life and works to the world.

The Sister Fund is a private foundation that supports and gives voice to women working for justice from a religious framework.