Women's American ORT Inc.

History: WAO was founded in 1927 in Brooklyn to raise funds for European Jews after World War I. WAO’s mission has evolved into providing ORT schools and programs throughout the world with the financial resources and leadership vital to ORT’s efforts. These programs and initiatives have evolved as the needs and demographics of constituents have changed, from Holocaust survivors to Ethiopian Jews who came en masse to Israel in the 1980s to Russian Jews after the fall of the Iron Curtain.