About Us
This special collection highlights the moments, memories, and milestones that reflect the passion, purpose, and perseverance of the women—and men—who have shaped and sustained our mission.
Today, thanks to the generosity of donors, sponsors, and philanthropic partners, Texas Women’s Foundation continues to work collaboratively to create pathways to economic security, stability, and success for women across Texas. Since its inception, the Foundation has invested nearly $115 million in communities statewide and remains steadfast in its commitment to building Strong Women and a Better Texas.
Story Highlights
Turning Philanthropy into Impact
“It might have been a little ambitious as I look back,” recalls the Foundation’s first Executive Director, Pat Sabin. “But we were an ambitious group of women.”
She’s speaking of the Foundation’s very first fundraising event—held in May 1986, just nine months after its official launch. It wasn’t a modest gathering, but a full-scale luncheon in the grand Chantilly Ballroom at the Hilton Anatole.
Ladies Who Lunch
“It might have been a little ambitious as I look back,” recalls the Foundation’s first Executive Director, Pat Sabin. “But we were an ambitious group of women.”
She’s speaking of the Foundation’s very first fundraising event—held in May 1986, just nine months after its official launch. It wasn’t a modest gathering, but a full-scale luncheon in the grand Chantilly Ballroom at the Hilton Anatole.
Getting Organized
It was the summer of 1984 when philanthropist and scholar Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt, community leader Maura McNeil, and the Honorable Harryette Ehrhardt, then serving on the Dallas City Council, gathered a group of women in Harryette’s home on Swiss Avenue.
Harryette remembers with a laugh,
“It was all Helen’s idea, really. The idea of starting a women’s foundation was just a foreign concept to the rest of us. You might as well have told us we were meeting to launch a rocket to the moon!”