Zonta was the first global women Club Service founded in the world, 1919.
In the early 1900s, at a time when women rarely held leadership positions, playwright and journalist Marian de
Forest conceived the idea of a strong network of women in executive positions who would work to take their rightful
place in the professions next to men. Marian de Forest understood how important it was to break through the glass ceiling,
long before that term was used. She was the woman that made the impossible possible: five women organized to achieve
this mission and chartered the first Zonta club in Buffalo, New York, USA in March 1919. Membership grew rapidly and
a confederation of nine clubs formed with 600 members on 8 November 1919 drafted and adopted Bylaws and a Constitution,
and selected the name Zonta.
“Zonta” comes from the Lakota Sioux word that means honest and trustworthy. It was adopted in 1919 to symbolize the
combined qualities of honesty and trust, inspiration and the ability to work together for service and world understanding.
The Confederation became Zonta International upon organizing the first European club, the Zonta Club of Vienna,
Austria in 1930. In 1932 Zonta International moved its headquarters from Buffalo to Chicago. Today, Zonta International is
present with more than 1.200 Clubs chartered in 67 countries.
Since 1919 Zonta International advances the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy.
Zonta International recognizes the need to promote and protect the human rights of all women and girls.
Since 1923, when Zontians aided relief efforts for women and children in Turkey to 2008, more than US$9 million
has been disseminated to projects in countries as far reaching as Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Colombia, Comoros Islands, Egypt, Ghana, Guatemala,
India, Mexico, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Togo,
Urugauy and Zimbabwe. read more »
Thousands Zontians are daily engaged in doing this, supporting proposals and working to influence the laws and attitudes
that affect women’s lives at every level - international, national and local – and collect fund to realize the
International Service and the local service programs.