Business and Professional Women's Foundation
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[1][2]Business and Professional Women's Foundation (BPW) is an organization established for workforce development programs and workplace policies to acknowledge the needs of working women, communities, and businesses. It supports the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs.
Structure
The work of BPW Foundation is supported through corporate partnerships, grants, and individual philanthropic donations. Its Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) number is 10506. It is governed by a board of trustees.
Sub-organizations
History
Founding
While mobilizing for
BPW/USA became the first organization created to focus on the issues of working women. BPW worked throughout the 1930s to prohibit legislation or directives denying jobs to married women and lobbied successfully to legislatively end the legal practice of workplace preference for unmarried persons and, in the case of married persons, preference for males. BPW/USA was one of the first women's organizations to endorse the Equal Rights Amendment in 1937.
During World War II
At the advent of
Incorporation and subsequent activities
BPW Foundation was incorporated in 1956 as the first foundation dedicated to providing resources to and about working women. It included research, information, career development programs, workshops and other training opportunities. The Marguerite Rawal Resource Center, established in 1980 and put on-line 2006, is a major resource for information and documents on the history of women and women in the workplace.
The establishment of "Status of Women" commissions in the U.S. in 1963 was due largely to BPW efforts. President John F. Kennedy recognized BPW's leading role in securing passage of the Equal Pay Act by giving BPW's National President the first pen he used when signing the Act into law.
Virginia Allan initiated the "Young Careerist" Program to develop the business and presentation skills of young women between 25 and 35 years of age. The first National Legislative Conference, held in 1963 in D.C., later developed into BPW's current Policy & Action Conference, where members lobby Congress and the Administration on BPW's legislative issues.
BPW tackled "comparable worth" by calling for newspapers to stop the occupational segregation in classified ads (clustering of women in a few restricted occupations of low-paying, dead-end jobs). Numerous state and municipal governments revamped their pay scales, recognizing dissimilar jobs may not be identical, but may be composed of tasks, educational requirements, experience and other characteristics that are equivalent or comparable. In 1986, San Francisco became the first city in the nation to approve a pay equity referendum, implementing $34 million in increases for employees in female and minority-dominated jobs. Continuing with BPW's focus on workplace issues, BPW lobbied Congress for passage of the
Discussions on
21st century
In 2005, BPW used its grassroots power to continue the Bureau of Labor and Statistics' (BLS) Working Women Series and to re-instate Lifetime TV on the DISH Network programming. Same year in October, BPW/USA launched Women Joining Forces: Closing Ranks, Opening Doors (WJF), a program to support women veterans as they transition from military to civilian life. This commitment made BPW/USA the first and only non-governmental agency to offer programming that supports women veterans.
Workplace equity issues including
, lifetime economic security and pay equity continue to be BPW's targeted issues.In 2009 BPW Foundation merged with its sister organization BPW/USA.
See also
Further reading
- Kathleen A. Laughlin. "Civic Feminists: The Politics of the Minnesota Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, 1942-1965," in Laughlin, Kathleen A., and Jacqueline L. Castledine, eds., Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Organizations, and Feminism, 1945-1985. (New York: Routledge, 2011) pp. 11–27
References
- ^ "BPW Sponsor Foundation". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. May 18, 1956. p. 22. Retrieved June 8, 2023.
- ^ Nevin, Susan B. (January 17, 1967). "Something Doing: Clubwomen to Pioneer in First Crafts Contest; February 1 Is the Date". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. 19. Retrieved June 8, 2023.