This week’s Meet a Mom is helping Mothers’ Day help other moms—a lot of moms. In 2010, Kim Hausman Athan and a few other mothers (including her own!) launched Mothers’ Day Movement, a non-profit organization that benefits women and families worldwide. One hundred percent of the $1 million they have raised since then has gone to charities worldwide. This year the beneficiary is Family Promise, the nation’s leading organization combating family homelessness.
They’re all about using Mother’s Day to give back to moms – with almost $36 billion going to Mother’s Day gifts every year, a small “shift in the gift” can help women and families in a big way.
Read on for our interview with Kim, an Old Greenwich, CT-based mom of two and this amazing organization.
Love the concept of Mothers’ Day Movement! What was your background originally?
I began my career in financial services marketing and after studying four long years for my MBA from Fordham University at night, I started my own online marketing and website development firm.
After having my kids, I stopped working outside the home and enjoyed being a full-time mom to Drew (now 21) and Katy (19). We started Mothers’ Day Movement in 2010 when my kids were 7 and 5.
How do you describe Mothers’ Day Movement to anyone not yet familiar?
Mothers’ Day Movement was founded by a small group of women who believe in making a difference for women and their families around the globe. You’ll notice that the apostrophe in our name comes after the “s” because we define this holiday as one to honor all mothers, not just our own.
We want to create a world where the commercial gift-giving of Mother’s Day can be harnessed for real, transformative impact. We are all volunteers and 100% of each donation goes directly to the chosen charity.
We have been able to help women and families in the areas of education, healthcare, access to clean water, human trafficking, hunger and this year, family homelessness.
Amazing! What was the impetus to launch MDM?
We were initially inspired to do something after reading Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. In this incredible book they repeatedly show that if you help a woman, she in turn will elevate not only her family, but her entire community.
The “aha” moment came when Kristof wrote in his 2010 New York Times Mother’s Day column that over $14 billion was spent on Mother’s Day gift giving in the United States, and that was enough to educate all 60 million girls not receiving an education at that time.
We couldn’t believe it…what an insane amount of money on disposable things like cards and flowers! We felt that all moms have a desire to make the world a better place for their children, and decided to try to use our annual holiday to make that happen.
Since then, gift-giving for Mother’s Day has risen to over $35 billion! Can you imagine how many people could be helped by just a fraction of that number?
So powerful. Who makes up your team?
We are a team of 6 women, including my 81-year-old Mom, Eva Hausman. She was really the driving force from the beginning, and is in contact with Nick Kristof to share our beneficiary annually.
He is so supportive and has written about us in the New York Times over the years, hosted Facebook Live with our charities and posts about our work ahead of the holiday.
The other four women are committed to this work while balancing full-time jobs and families; Stephanie Norton, Wendy Bronfin, Dominika Jaworski and Nadia Meier. We also have Ambassadors all around the country and anyone can be one. It’s a Movement and we want everyone onboard!
How do you choose each year’s beneficiary – and why support Family Promise this year?
Each year we accept applications through a short RFP [Request for Proposal] process. Applicants must be a registered non-profit organization in the US and must work in the areas of education and skill building, economic empowerment or health and well-being. These are very broad categories, but the most important factor is that they can demonstrate a track record of implementing successful projects related to women and their families.
Over the course of 15 years, we have only partnered with charities working on domestic issues twice, and Family Promise is our third. We were struck by the statistic that over 2.5 million children will experience homelessness in the United States this year. One in every 20 students in a classroom will statistically be homeless and in New York City, that number goes to 1 in 10.
I can’t imagine worrying about where my kids will sleep tonight. I can’t imagine how homeless kids are able to focus in school and do their homework. It just seems unfathomable, and we are so happy to be working with Family Promise this year.
A few of our past beneficiaries include Edesia Nutrition (hunger), Dig Deep (clean running water in the United States) and Saving Mothers (maternal mortality). You can check out all of our past beneficiaries on our website, www.mothersdaymovement.org
How many funds have you distributed so far, and what are your goals ultimately?
Each year, we have raised between $50,000 and $125,000 for our chosen charity. Since our campaign is just once a year, we are very proud of those numbers and we were thrilled to reach $1,000,000 total last year!
Our goal is to keep getting the word out that each of us can help make change in the world. When you make a donation to Mothers’ Day Movement, you can select a beautiful Mother’s Day card to be sent to a woman you love informing her of your generosity, and how your donation will be used to help end family homelessness.
More from the Local Moms Network:
Meet a Mom: NBC’s Laura Jarrett
Meet a Mom: Mom Advocate and Influencer, Paige Connell
Meet a Mom: Chamber of Mothers CEO & Co-Founder Erin Erenberg