The Women’s Sports Foundation is an educational nonprofit (501(c)(3) charity) organization founded in 1974 by tennis legend Billie Jean King.
The foundation’s mission is to advance the lives of girls and women through sports and physical activity.
The Foundation works for equal opportunity for daughters to play sports so they, too, can derive the psychological, physiological and sociological benefits of sports participation and has a $7 million operating budget with funds raised each year from foundations, individuals, the federal government and corporations.
Working Principles
- High school girls who play sports are less likely to be involved in an unintended pregnancy, more likely to get better grades in school, and more likely to graduate than girls who do not play sports.
- Girls and women who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem and lower levels of depression.
- Sport is where the children learn about teamwork, goal setting and the pursuit of excellence. In an economic environment where the quality of the life is dependent on two-income families, the daughters cannot be less prepared for the highly competitive workplace than the sons.
- The Foundation works to afford females equal opportunity to work and be volunteer leaders in sports organizations and the sports industry.
Achievements
- One of the top five public grant-giving women’s funds in the United States, the Foundation distributes $10,000-20,000 per week from operating dollars to provide opportunities for socioeconomically underprivileged and inactive girls to participate in sports and physical activity.
- The Foundation’s advocacy efforts have directly affected the amount of scholarship dollars supporting educational opportunities for female student-athletes in the United States. In 1972, women received only $100,000 but now receive $617 million a year.
- In the past 34 years, the Foundation has awarded more than $50 million in educational and cash grants to advance participation, research and leadership in sports and physical activity for girls and women.
- The Foundation’s support of national laws prohibiting sex discrimination has resulted in an increase in high school girls’ varsity sports participation from 1 in 27 in 1972 to 2 in 5 girls in 2006.
In the 2004 and 2006 Olympic and Paralympic Games, 33 of the women competing received Travel and Training grants from the Foundation, and five medals were earned by the grantees.
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