About Us

Montclair Fund for Women, a private foundation, is the corporate successor of the former Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) of Montclair-North Essex. This YWCA was originally the Young Colored Women's Christian Association, founded by black American women who came to Montclair seeking education and employment. Over the years, the black women carefully forged an alliance with white women who shared their values and goals, and the YWCA became one of Montclair's prominent organizations, providing a broad range of innovative programs and resources to the community. After more than a decade of financial challenges, the YWCA Boards of Directors proposed a transition to a leaner, more sustainable structure that would honor the legacy by changing to meet the future.

In order to achieve this transition to Montclair Fund for Women, the YWCA Board of Trustees, endorsed by the YWCA members, agreed to the strategic transformation plan proposed by its Board of Directors, and voted to sell the aging property and use the net proceeds to form the Montclair Fund for Women. Montclair Fund for Women contracted, with copyrights, the YWCA Archives to the Montclair Public Library, which received a grant award to have them professionally catalogued and preserved for use by the public and scholars.