We fund freedom.
“When a woman has the freedom to act on her ambition, she doesn’t just change her life. She expands what is possible for everyone who comes after her.”
G.L.E.W. invests in ambitious mothers building freer futures and lasting legacies.
Our mission is to expand the freedom and possibilities of ambitious mothers. We provide Freedom Capital grounded in a simple belief: women should have the agency to decide what they need to build the lives and legacies they envision. Our work is guided by three principles:
Sovereignty, Creativity, and Integrity.
we provide freedom capital.
Freedom Capital is both a kind of money and a philosophy for how money should move. It is capital invested in ambitious mothers building lasting legacies. Where traditional philanthropy often begins with restrictions, Freedom Capital begins with trust, agency, and possibility.
The g.l.e.w. Matriarchs
Meet the women behind the legacy.
G.L.E.W. is an acronym that reflects the first names of the maternal and paternal matriarchs of our founders: Gertrude, Lillian, Eula, and Willie.
Gertrude, Lillian, Eula, and Willie built lives of courage, resourcefulness, and possibility in the face of racism, sexism, violence, loss, and economic constraint. They created opportunity for their families while imagining futures larger than the circumstances they inherited. G.L.E.W. honors their legacy not simply for what they endured, but for what they made possible.
G.L.E.W. defines mothers expansively. Mothering is a practice, not only a biology — it lives in adoption, in kinship care, in the women who raise nieces, nephews, siblings, and alongside those who carry the work of mothering for kin and community. The Foundation centers women of the diaspora across the full spectrum of our community.