AWARD-WINNING BROADCAST PRODUCER AND COMMUNICATIONS EXPERT FRAN ZONE GRANTS $150K TO EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT

Funding will be used to create a digital media hub covering equity issues for the Fund for Women’s Equality

For Immediate Release
Contact: Lupe Todd-Medina: Lupe@EffectiveMediaStrategies.com; 917.202.0116

Monday, March 29, 2021 – (New York, NY) – The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) Coalition and the Fund for Women’s Equality (FFWE) today announced that Fran Zone, award-winning broadcast producer and the creator of The Zone Method™, has gifted the Coalition/FFWE a grant of $150,000 to create a new digital media hub dedicated to covering women’s equality issues and featuring journalists and writers of color, Black women, and other marginalized populations.

The Fund for Women’s Equality’s new digital media hub will focus on telling the stories not normally heard in the mainstream media of women and communities affected by gender inequality through an intersectional and feminist lens using various forms of multimedia. It will also hire young journalists of color to be leaders in this effort, and provide opportunities through our Coalition and Corporate Equality Roundtable for advancement in the media sector.

“During this month of women’s history and empowerment, we are so proud to receive this very generous donation from Fran,” said Carol Jenkins, president and CEO of the ERA Coalition and the Fund for Women’s Equality. “Her commitment to our core values and fight for gender equality is unwavering and we thank her for her tremendous support.”

“Now that we are so close to bringing equal rights to the Constitution and the workplace, it’s important that we have a venue where all women’s stories are shared and told. Inclusion in the storyline is the most powerful way to build connection, engagement, and innovation to families, American business and the communities they provide services and products to,” Fran Zone, Founder and CEO of Zone Communication, said.

The source of the grant is the Fran Zone/John Mack Carter Scholarship Fund. Fran’s life-long commitment to supporting women in media careers includes the creation of the fund, which has issued “Media That Makes A Difference” scholarships and grants to women pursuing media careers that can inform and affect the communities they serve.

Fran was recruited by ABC-TV in 1992 to create a national, multi-medium, information campaign on sexual harassment. In partnership with media icon, John Mack Carter, she created the Coalition to Stop Sexual Harassment media campaign. Corporate sponsors included Chrysler, Time Inc, Murad, and Hearst Magazines. The award-winning campaign was the first of its kind and a precursor to informing employees and employers of their rights and responsibilities.

An expert on women’s leadership challenges in the workplace, Fran has been recruited to create leadership communication programs, keynotes, and curriculum for women at Intel, Accenture, HP, Genentech, and Johnson & Johnson. She is a past president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Women in Radio and Television and serves on the Steering Committee that created the Gloria Steinem Chair at Rutgers University, in conjunction with Rutgers Women’s Leadership Institute (WLI).

About the ERA Coalition:

The ERA Coalition was founded in 2014 to bring concerted, organized action to the effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA Coalition has a sister organization, the Fund for Women’s Equality, which promotes public education and outreach on the need for constitutional equality. Comprised of more than one hundred and twenty organizations across the country, the Coalition provides education and advocacy on Constitutional Equality. 

The Fund for Women’s Equality and its sister organization ERA Coalition (501c4) were founded in 2014 to bring concerted, organized action to the effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The 28th Amendment to the Constitution would ensure that women/girls, transgender women/girls, gender-nonconforming individuals are protected under the law. While the effort to amend the constitution to include sex equality began nearly a century ago, our renewed efforts are centered on leadership in the Black, American Indian, Alaska Native and Women of Color communities, including and those who are most vulnerable by systemic inequities. 

About the Fund for Women’s Equality:
The Fund for Women’s Equality promotes legal and lived equality for women in the United States by increasing public understanding of the need for comprehensive, fair and equal treatment of women and girls under the law and the need to end sex inequality in all its forms.

The Fund for Women's Equality is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.