FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JWA Founding Chair Barbara Dobkin Receives LEAD Award

(Denver, Colorado) -- Barbara Dobkin, Founding Chair of the Jewish Women's Archive (JWA), was honored with the LEAD (Leadership, Equity and Diversity) Award, one of the highest honors in philanthropy. The Women’s Funding Network presented the award on Friday April 23 at its annual conference in Denver, where she was also recognized by the Council on Foundations on April 25.

The LEAD Award, endowed by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in 1997, is presented annually “to a philanthropist recognized as an outstanding risk-taker and innovator in the philanthropic community who, through determination and leadership, has increased funding for programs that promote gender equity and diversity.”

Barbara Dobkin has dedicated the last 25 years to supporting a variety of feminist and social justice causes as a funder, activist, and advocate. She considers charitable giving an opportunity to drive change and has done just that, dramatically transforming the worlds of women’s and Jewish philanthropy.

Gail Twersky Reimer, Executive Director of the Jewish Women's Archive and a long-time friend and colleague of Barbara Dobkin, said, “Having benefitted from Barbara’s risk taking, her passionate and determined leadership, and her extraordinary generosity, we know how well deserved an honor this is.”

In 1995, Reimer and Dobkin met serendipitously at a panel called "Jewish Women Transforming Community” in Cambridge, MA. They discovered their shared vision for a Jewish community in which women’s stories were included and celebrated. With Dobkin’s help, it took only nine months to create the Jewish Women’s Archive and to make this vision a reality.

Barbara Dobkin also served as founding chair of Ma’yan, the Jewish Women’s Project of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, and played a critical role in the Women Moving Millions campaign, which has raised more than $180 million in gifts of $1 million or more for women’s foundations and women’s funds around the world. She has also been a key supporter of Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community, a research and policy-making initiative, and The White House Project, which aspires to put women in the power pipeline, as well as the Hadassah Foundation, Lilith Magazine, and the Women's Funding Network. She currently serves as chair of American Jewish World Service.