Mildred Robbins Leet

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Mildred Robbins Leet (born Mildred Elowsky; August 9, 1922 – May 3, 2011) was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist who co-founded Trickle Up, a New York–based nonprofit that helps the world’s poorest people start small businesses by providing seed capital and training. She served as Chair Emerita of Trickle Up’s board.

Leet was born in Brooklyn, New York, and earned a Bachelor’s degree from New York University. She helped found United Cerebral Palsy in 1948 and was its first President of the Women’s Division. She and her work connected her with the United Nations and many international women’s groups. From 1957 to 1964 she was the UN Representative for the National Council of Women of the USA, and she led that council as president from 1964 to 1968, focusing on civil rights, peacekeeping, and women’s involvement in national service.

She held leadership roles with the International Council of Women, contributed to poverty-related programs in the United States Office of Economic Opportunity, and helped establish the UN Hospitality Information Service. She also contributed to the development of the International Peace Academy and organized a task force of women for the 1979 UN Conference on Science and Technology for Development. Leet and her husband Glen Leet were active in international work and received many awards for promoting peace and women’s advancement.

Leet also led the Audrey Cohen College for Human Services (now the Metropolitan College of New York) from 1986 to 1999, and she helped found UNIFEM. She was involved with the Council on Foreign Relations and various women’s groups, and she supported scholarships for African girl orphans. In 1995, InterAction created the Mildred Robbins Leet Award in her honor for outstanding work on gender issues. She and Glen Leet received numerous other honors, including the Presidential Points of Light and the National Women’s Hall of Fame induction in 2003. She had two children and was married first to Louis J. Robbins (died 1970) and later to Glen F. Leet (married 1974). Mildred Robbins Leet died in Manhattan, New York, in 2011 at age 88.