Learning to count:
Helen LaKelly Hunt helps women create change
By: Deborah Shouse

She grew up in a wealthy Dallas family, but LaKelly had little to do with money. The men were expected to handle, manage, grow and allocate the money, and the women were not encouraged to be a part of it.

As a young woman in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Helen realized she knew nothing about what money could do or how it could work. An old childhood rhyme haunted her:

“The King is in his counting house counting out the money. The queen is in the parlor eating bread and honey.”

Helen enjoyed eating bread and honey, but she was also interested in producing, distributing and sharing such sustenance.

“Since so much of the family money reflected the men in the family, my sister and I decided to learn about philanthropy and see if there was a way money could reflect the compassion, intelligence and relational values of the women in our family,” Helen says.

In the early 1980s, Helen learned about the San Francisco Women’s Fund.

“I was intrigued by the way women were working together to leverage each other’s impact, efforts and money,” Helen says.

Ever since then she has been involved with and dedicated to women’s philanthropy.

She helped found women’s funding institutions, including the Dallas Women’s Foundation, the New York Women’s Foundation and the National Network of Women’s Funds (now the Women’s Funding Network). She is founder and president of The Sister Fund, a private women’s fund dedicated to the social, political, economic and spiritual empowerment of women and girls.

Helen focuses her work on women’s issues because women have a greater need for funding and for voice. Seventy-five percent of the people living in poverty are women and children.

“Women’s funds, like the Women’s Foundation of Greater Kansas City, lift up women’s voices,” Helen believes. “They acknowledge women’s wisdom, needs and their women’s potential to make the community a healthier place.”

Through building relationships and working together, women are creating innovative solutions. Women’s funds are part of these solutions.

“The funds have proliferated on their own,” Helen explains. “They exemplify an unleashing of a new consciousness.”

Today, there are many such funds, including funds in the United States and in countries such as Nepal, India and South Africa. Enterprising women in Amsterdam started the “Mama Cash Fund.”

“Every time a person makes a contribution to the Women’s Foundation in Kansas City, she is impacting the whole network,” Helen says. “Everyone’s check, from $5.00 to $5,000.00, is equally important. We invite people to make a commitment at whatever level they can.”

Women’s funds encourage diverse boards that are cross-race, cross-class and cross-socioeconomic. Helen believes that diverse women, joined together, can collaboratively make decisions that lead to great accomplishments.

“This kind of diversity is one reason these women’s funds have been so successful,” Helen says. “The funds are a place where people from all parts of the community are engaged and equal.”

As part of her philanthropic work, Helen has written a book, “Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance.” (Atria Books, 2004). She believes that spirituality and feminism have similar goals: peace on earth and goodwill for all. “My book suggests they need each other to complete their respective missions,” she says.

Helen would like more women to have their voices heard. “Women are 51 percent of the population and we control over 51 percent of the resources. When we unite, we become quite a force.”

To learn more about Helen LaKelly Hunt and the Women’s Foundation of Greater Kansas City, visit www.wfgkc.org.

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