“We Fight to Win”: Four Decades of the Celebrating Women Breakfast
The New York Women’s Foundation honored Valerie Jarrett, Jeannie Park, Leah Greenberg and The National Philanthropic Collaborative of Young Women’s Initiatives at the New York Marriott Marquis, in a morning built around persistence rather than ceremony.
The instruction was blunt and delivered without softening. “I need you to continue to show up. I need you to pick your fight and dedicate yourself. Fight to win. We fight to win,” Ana L. Oliveira, President and CEO of The New York Women’s Foundation, told the room at the New York Marriott Marquis. It was a Wednesday morning in May, the crowd was assembled over breakfast, and the register was closer to a rallying cry than a welcome address.
That tone has become characteristic of the Celebrating Women Breakfast, the Foundation’s signature annual gathering, which on May 13, 2026 drew leaders, advocates, philanthropists and community partners from across New York City. For nearly forty years the breakfast has convened the Foundation’s community in support of its grantees and its ongoing work advancing gender, racial and economic justice. The formula has proven durable in part because it resists becoming purely celebratory.
Four honorees were recognized this year, chosen across distinct terrain. The Vision Award went to Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, and to Jeannie Park, Board Chair of the Korean American Community Foundation, both recognized for contributions spanning public service, philanthropy and community leadership.
The Celebrating Women Award was presented to Leah Greenberg, co-Founder and co-Executive Director of the Indivisible Project, and to The National Philanthropic Collaborative of Young Women’s Initiatives, honored for work in civic participation, movement-building and the support of young women and gender-expansive leaders. Taken together, the honorees traced a line from institutional philanthropy through grassroots organizing, which is roughly the span the Foundation itself covers.
The room reflected that breadth. Among those present were Jarrett, Park, Greenberg and Oliveira, alongside Karen Choi, Juliana Pereira, Imara Jones, Helene Banks, Soffiyah Elijah, Mary Baglivo, Lola C. West, Jean Shafiroff, Narae Yun, Marielle Villar Martiney, Gloria Pitagorsky, Carrie Malcolm, Alison Overseth, Michèle Penzer, Margarita Rosa and Maria Cilenti, a network of supporters and organizers whose work runs through neighborhoods across the five boroughs.
The scale of what that network has built is easier to grasp in figures. Established in 1987, The New York Women’s Foundation invests in community-led solutions advancing the power and well-being of women, girls and gender-expansive individuals. It ranks among the largest women-led grantmaking organizations in the world, and over its nearly four decades it has awarded more than $141 million to over 500 organizations, an ecosystem of grantees, philanthropists, advocates and innovators whose influence extends well past New York City.
Those numbers accumulate one grant at a time, which is perhaps the truest justification for a breakfast that has convened annually since the late 1980s. The honorees change. The instruction, as Oliveira delivered it, does not.
To learn more about The New York Women’s Foundation or see highlights from the event, visit www.nywf.org.
