Dorothy Sander

Dorothy Sander Knows the Value of a Dollar

From her working-class roots to her successful business career, Dorothy Sander has built a reputation for being generous and smart with her resources.

“Money was tight when I was starting out, so I knew how to use every dollar I made and shared any extra with my family,” Dorothy said. “I worked during the day, went to school at night and, when I grew more successful, began giving to organizations. I am as strategic now as when I had less.”

As a successful woman and private investor, Dorothy knows the value of a dollar—or perhaps, more accurately, she knows how to get value out of her dollars. One strategy she uses is partnering with Astraea.

“I started out as a small donor and have now become a significant donor because I want Astraea to continue its work well into the future,” she said. “I’m invested in Astraea because ‘Justice’ is as much in its name as it is in its practice.”

Dorothy first became involved with Astraea because she was impressed to see a foundation being “led entirely by smart, powerful and socially conscious women,” and she appreciated the types of “investments made in our community and worldwide.”

As the current Board Chair for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Dorothy is acutely focused on advancing human rights. “I have been involved in the LGBT movement for over three decades. In the early days I stuffed envelopes with the foot soldiers; now I contribute by sitting on boards and directing financial investments.” Through annual contributions, a donor-advised fund and a lifetime pledge of $1 million to Astraea, Dorothy invests to advance her values.

“It’s important to me that Astraea resources organizations both in the U.S. and around the world simultaneously—both for the sake of supporting the rights of people outside the U.S. and as a strategy for putting on outside pressure to improve things here in the U.S.”

Dorothy cites the donor-advised fund program as one of the greatest benefits of partnering with Astraea. The program allows her to maximize the power of her investments by designating funds to support a specific interest area within Astraea’s mission, such as filmmaking, while benefiting from the expertise of Astraea’s grantmaking panel to select recipients and perform all necessary due diligence. By endowing an annual $10,000 grant to a filmmaker whose work focuses on the lives of lesbians, Dorothy is able to advance the work of her late partner, Joyce Warshow.

“My late partner was a filmmaker dedicated to documenting the lives of lesbians who contributed to social justice movements around the world. We both believed in the importance of making these women visible, and Astraea helped us do that by funding three of Joyce’s early film projects. Now I’m able to support an annual grant to ensure that this work carries forward.”

Dorothy is enthusiastic about being part of an engaged donor community: “Astraea puts like-minded donors together. We need to keep growing our cadre of like-minded people and fund the full expression of our rights—all of our rights.”