Helen LaKelly Hunt has been active within the women’s movement for more than 20 years and has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. 

She has also been recognized for her leadership in building the women’s funding movement with the National Creative Philanthropy Award and Gloria Steinem’s Women of Vision Award, and (in 2015) with an honorary doctorate of humane letters from her alma mater, Southern Methodist University, among other honors.

In 2004, Hunt completed a doctoral degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she explored how theology, or a spiritual perspective, has strengthened the work of women’s activism. Her dissertation, “The Religious Roots of American Feminism,” became the basis of her book, Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance.

Hunt is the founder and president of The Sister Fund—a private women’s fund dedicated to the social, political, economic, and spiritual empowerment of women and girls, and she has helped found a number of other women’s funding institutions, including the Dallas Women’s Foundation, the New York Women’s Foundation, and the National Network of Women’s Funds (now Women’s Funding Network).