Teresa Younger, outgoing CEO of Ms Foundation, reflects on the pursuit of equality

NEW YORK (AP) — Teresa Younger's term leading the Ms. Foundation, the first national philanthropy run by women and for women, has spanned the #MeToo movement and the rollback of national abortion rights and is now ending during Donald Trump's second presidency.

“We are currently not in the best shape,” Younger said, of the pursuit for political equality for everyone, part of the Ms. Foundation's mission. But even as she prepares to step down from her role as CEO in June, Younger said she is not walking away from the fight.

“I believe feminism is still alive and well," Younger said in an interview with The Associated Press. "In fact, it has been the one thing that has been the preservation of democracy and our constitutional rights in some way over the past 12 years.”

As CEO, Younger took on domestic abuse by professional football players, expanded the foundation's investments in grassroots groups in the South and Midwest and raised more than $100 million for its endowment. In 2018, the foundation embraced a strategy to advocate for resources to go to girls and women of color. Younger said that change was a long time coming, but it resonated differently under her leadership as a Black and Indigenous woman.

“The institution was explicit in our strategic plan to say that we want to center women and girls of color as a point of inclusion, not exclusion," Younger said. "And now we are sitting in a spot where quote-unquote DEI is looked at as bad. And we refuse to accept that.”

As part of that strategic shift, the foundation produced a 2020 report called, “Pocket Change: How Women and Girls of Color Do More with Less,” which is a call to other philanthropic funders to change not just what they fund but how.

The research identified that charitable foundations granted about $356 million to women and girls of color in 2017, which represents less than 0.05% of funds granted out in 2018 by foundations.

But beyond highlighting this tiny investment in some of the country's most marginalized people, the report revealed major misalignments between funders and groups led by women of color. For example, many of these nonprofits use multiple strategies, providing child care and diapers alongside their advocacy for reproductive justice. Meanwhile, funders may separate grantmaking by population, strategy or issue, and may only want to fund part of their activities.

The report calls for foundations to provide flexible, long-term funding, to align their strategies with the groups they fund, to solicit feedback from grantees and to support intermediaries who are well connected with these groups.

This has long been the role that women's funds and Ms. Foundation have played within philanthropy. They both support grassroots groups that serve marginalized populations, and pioneer new ways of funding and working with those groups, which some other funders then adopt as best practices.

The earliest women's funds in the U.S. started in the 1970s, with Ms. Foundation being the first national funder to support women's groups and feminist movements. It was founded in 1973 by Gloria Steinem, Patricia Carbine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Marlo Thomas.

Sunny Fischer, one of the founders of the Chicago Foundation for Women, said the women who started it around 1983 wanted to serve women differently than how many large social service organizations were at the time.

Rather than telling women experiencing domestic violence to go back and save their marriages, she said, “There were new groups that were trying to help women where they were, to really understand what was going on in the home and to try to give women choices about what they could do if they were in an abusive situation."

Lucia Woods Lindley, a photographer and an heir of a wealthy Nebraska family whose fortune came from telecommunications and coal, was another founder of CFW, who Fischer remembered as "a great planner."

In 2023, Ms. Foundation announced that Woods Lindley had left them $50 million in her estate, the largest gift it had ever received. It made up almost half the $106 million the foundation ultimately raised for its endowment.

In an interview at the time, Younger said Ms. Foundation had not expected the gift from Woods Lindley to be so large.

“She trusted and believed that Ms. (Foundation)’s role as the national public women’s foundation was critical to the thought leadership that needed to happen in philanthropy around feminism and around challenging the field and around growing and asking the right kinds of questions,” Younger said.

Overall, the amount of money controlled by women’s funds remains tiny compared to the assets of major foundations and the largest individual philanthropists. One exception is Melinda French Gates, who has committed billions to benefit women and girls.

The Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy has tracked giving to women and girls and found that over 10 years, the proportion of overall philanthropic support they've received has risen from 1.59% in 2012 to 2.04% in 2023, with an increase to 2.18% in 2022.

“The vast majority of philanthropic dollars are going to the general population and based on need rather than identity,” said Jacqueline Ackerman, the institute's director, but she said they track giving to historically underfunded groups in order to reveal whether those trends are changing.

Ms. Foundation plans to announce Younger's replacement later this spring and Younger has not yet said what is next for her. Speaking with emotion, Younger said she has loved the work she's done with the foundation but is confident it will benefit from new leadership.

“I want to look back and see somebody who’s built on what I’ve been able to do and take it to the next level,” she said. “And I will sit back with pride in what they are able to accomplish.”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

FILE - Ms. Foundation President and CEO Teresa Younger, right, and Gloria Steinem pose at the Ms. Foundation's Women of Vision Awards at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, May 16, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

CHICAGO (AP) — Successive punches of snow and wind were set to impact the eastern half of the United States on Monday as severe weather swept across much of the nation and made roads impassable in the Upper Midwest.

Forecasters said mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., were at greatest risk for high winds and tornadoes. The cold front was expected to move off the East Coast by Tuesday, bringing sharply colder weather in its wake, forecasters said.

By Tuesday morning, wind chills below freezing were expected to reach the Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle with freeze warnings in effect in parts of the Southeast and parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas, forecasters warned. To the north, rain was expected to change over to snow behind the cold front with accumulations of more than 6 inches (15 centimeters) possible in the central Appalachians of West Virginia.

The late winter blast comes as Hawaii continued to be affected by a separate storm system that caused severe flooding over the weekend.

The National Weather Service that warned a line of severe storms with damaging winds would cross much of the Eastern U.S. After firing up Sunday, the storms were crossing the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio valleys. The storm threat was expected to enter the Appalachians, then move toward the East Coast, where “severe thunderstorms with widespread damaging winds and several tornadoes” were expected, the service said.

A stretch from parts of South Carolina to Maryland appeared most likely to experience the greatest damaging winds Monday afternoon, the weather service said. That could include Raleigh, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; and the nation’s capital.

Many schools in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia were closed Monday. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein urged residents to enable emergency alerts on their phones ahead of expected wind gusts of 74 mph (119 kph). In Maryland, many school systems planned to dismiss students early on Monday.

Beyond the threat to lives and property, “whether it’s wind gusts from a squall line, blizzard or snow, or just wind because of the storm, you’re looking at several major airports being impacted,“ said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys.

Blizzard conditions persisted Monday in parts of Wisconsin and Michigan, where the storm brought as much as 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow by morning. It was still snowing in the region. Additional snowfall of a foot (30 centimeters) to 20 inches (51 centimeters) of snow can be expected in upper Michigan, along with gusty winds, on Monday, the National Weather Service said. Schools were closed in a number of communities Monday in both states, including Milwaukee and Marquette, Michigan.

Lower snow accumulations in places such as Chicago and Milwaukee were expected to create trouble for commuters on Monday, Roys said.

Jim Allen, 45, who lives on the Upper Peninsula, said his family stocked up on necessities and he was ready to clear snow several times Sunday with a shovel and snowblower.

“We’re basically prepared to just kind of hunker down for a few days if we need to,” Allen said.

Nearly 1,400 flights were delayed nationwide and another 1,800 were canceled, according to FlightAware, which tracks flight disruptions. O’Hare and Midway international airports in Chicago reported more than 350 cancellations early Monday. At Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta, about 200 flights were delayed and another 160 were canceled.

More than 250,000 utility customers in six Great Lakes states were without electricity early Monday, according to PowerOutage.us. Some originated on Friday when gusts in the region reached 85 mph (137 kph). Another half-million customers were in the dark from Texas to Kentucky.

In Nebraska, about 30 National Guard members were deployed to combat multiple wildfires across a broad swath of range and grassland, state officials said. One fire-related fatality was reported.

Rain continued falling on Sunday in Hawaii, where acres of farmland and homes have been flooded, roads have been closed and shelters opened. Some areas of Maui received more than 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a social media post.

Maui County later on Sunday downgraded an evacuation notice and said crews were pumping water from retentions basins to keep them at safe levels.

Resident and real estate broker Jesse Wald, who recorded video of a coastal road’s collapse Saturday, said other parts of the road were flooded out by mud and sediment.

“In the 20 years I’ve been here I’ve never seen this much rain,” he said.

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Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writers Julie Walker in New York and Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, also contributed to this report.

Fans walk through snowy streets before an NHL hockey game between the Minnesota Wild and Toronto Maple Leafs, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in St. Paul. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

People drive on a snow-covered freeway during a snow storm Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)

Workers clear snow off the ground Sunday, March 15, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)