Donna Hall

Women Donors Network

WDN President & CEO Donna Hall has led the Women Donors Network since August 2002.  Her career has crisscrossed the public and private sectors as a manager, strategic planner, foundation executive and deputy director of a women's think tank.  She has worked at The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the Center for the Advancement of Women, and The Rockefeller Foundation over the past fifteen years.

Issues of particular concern include reproductive health and teen pregnancy prevention, health promotion, women's empowerment, the needs of at-risk youth, economic development, and communication and public awareness strategies that will help to bring about social change.

Ms. Hall earned her BA and MBA degrees from Stanford University and her MPH from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.  She currently serves on the board of the Healthy Teen Network, the National Advisory Panel of the Stanford University Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and State of Change.org. 

Let’s Talk About Important Life Decisions and Putting Prevention First

Donna Hall

When the Supreme Court set standards for legal abortion in all 50 states 34 years ago, no one expected the marches on the mall and demonstrations on the courthouse steps to last this long.

But abortion still regularly makes the news—around votes on Capitol Hill, in state legislatures or for state ballot measures, mostly on proposals to ban certain aspects of the procedure. Then there's the obligatory Sunday morning talk show question to everyone running for office: where do you stand on abortion? Rudy Giuliani gets it every time: "Can a Republican who supports abortion make it through the primary?" It's as though abortion were the only important social issue we face.

But we all know that it isn't. What about other important life decisions we all make every day related to our reproductive health?