The Celebrating Women Breakfast is the Foundation’s premiere fundraising event, attended by 2,200 people. The event raises over $2M each year, a substantial portion of the $5.5 million in grants we distribute each year.

At the Breakfast, NYWF pays tribute to remarkable and dynamic women leaders while spotlighting the incredible and vital work being done in the communities by our grantees partners. We hope you will join us in celebrating our honorees and our 80 grantee partners. Your support will enable us to continue to promote long-term economic security, sexual health, and safety for women and their families here in New York.

The following were honored :
Patrisse Cullors, Co-Founder of #BlackLivesMatter
Patrisse Cullors is an artist, organizer and freedom fighter living and working in Los Angeles. As founder of Dignity and Power Now and co-founder of BlackLivesMatter, she has worked tirelessly promoting law enforcement accountability across the nation.Dignity and Power Now is dedicated to protecting incarcerated people and their families in Los Angeles. As executive director, Ms. Cullors has undertaken several projects ranging from the Coalition to End Sheriff Violence, Freedom Harvest artist collective, a bi-annual publication, the Dandelion Rising Leadership Institute and Building Resilience. In August of this year, the organization issued a report in collaboration with the UCLA Human Rights Clinic on the high percentage of black, mentally ill inmates. The report received coverage from multiple media outlets.

Alicia Garza, Co-Founder of #BlackLivesMatter
In 2013, Alicia co-founded #BlackLivesMatter, an online platform developed after the murder of Trayvon Martin, designed to connect people interested in learning more about and fighting back against anti-Black racism.
Opal Tometi, Co-Founder of #BlackLivesMatter
Opal Tometi is a Black feminist writer, communications strategist and cultural organizer. She is a co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter. The historic political project and leader-full network was launched in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin in order to explicitly combat implicit bias and anti-black racism and to protect and affirm the beauty and dignity of all Black lives.

Catherine Gund, Documentary Filmmaker and Social Justice Activist
Catherine Gund is an Emmy-nominated producer, director, writer and organizer. In 1996, Gund founded Aubin Pictures, a nonprofit documentary media production company that promotes cultural and social awareness and change. Her films, which focus on arts and culture, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health, the environment and other social justice issues, have screened around the world in festivals, theaters, museums and schools; on PBS, Discovery’s Planet Green and the Sundance Channel.

Roberta Kaplan, Supreme Court Litigator, U.S. vs Windsor
A partner in the Litigation Department, Roberta (Robbie) Kaplan has been described as a “litigation superstar,” a “powerhouse corporate litigator” and a “pressure junkie” who “thrives on looking at the big picture” whether “in the gay-marriage legal fight or high-profile corporate scandals.”

Robbie successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of her client Edith Windsor in United States v. Windsor, the landmark Supreme Court case. In Windsor, the nation’s highest court ruled that a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violated the U.S. Constitution by barring legally married same-sex couples from enjoying the wide-ranging benefits of marriage conferred under federal law. The consequences of the Windsor decision have been both rapid and profound. Literally dozens of courts throughout the United States have explicitly relied on Windsor to extend equal rights to gay people under the law. Professor Lawrence Tribe of Harvard Law School has observed that he cannot “think of any Supreme Court decision in history that has ever created so rapid and broad a lower-court groundswell in a single direction as Windsor.”

With a special performance by Element:

ll-female a cappella powerhouse Element calls New York City home. With a repertoire of contemporary and classic pop and rock, Element has lent its vocal stylings to a wide range of venues. Since being featured on Season 4 of NBC’s The Sing-Off, the group has entertained crowds at Fashion Week, The Sing-Off Tour, the Dominique Ansel Bakery, and high end private events. They have also appeared on New York Live and as a repeat opening act for Jay Leno.