Anne Firth Murray

Anne Firth Murray, "a New Zealand born woman who had made a career working for American foundations, has worked for the United Nations as a writer and spent several years as an editor with university presses. For the past 25 years, she has worked in the field of philanthropy. She founded the Global Fund for Women in 1987 and served as its Founding President until she retired in 1996. She is now a Consulting Professor in the Human Biology Program at Stanford University. Professor Murray also serves as a consultant on civil society and other issues to many foundations and is on numerous boards and councils of nonprofit organizations. Her book, Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change, will appear in 2006. She is currently working on a new book on international women’s health and human rights. We will be able to gain insights on what it’s like to write as an activist." 

"For the past twenty-five years, she has worked in the field of philanthropy, serving as a consultant to many foundations. From 1978 to the end of 1987, she directed the environment and international population programs of the Hewlett Foundation in California...

"Ms. Murray serves on several boards and councils of non-profit organizations, including the African Women's Development Fund, Commonweal, GRACE (a group working on HIV/AIDS in East Africa), Hesperian Foundation, and UNNITI (a women's foundation in India). She is the recipient of many awards and honors for her work on women’s health and philanthropy, and in 2005 she was nominated as one of a group of 1,000 women for the Nobel Peace Prize." 

"Inspired by a dinner discussion with two other women at the annual conference of the Council on Foundations in 1987, Murray decided to create a new organization to seed, strengthen and link women's groups around the world. Her dinner companions, Frances Kissling and Laura Lederer, both social activists, signed on as co-founders and GFW was born."