Women are not only gaining financial influence, but are using it to give -- and give big -- to the charities they support, Time magazine reports in its May 17 issue.

Sara Lee Schupf, heiress to the Sara Lee Corp. foods empire, started a multimillion-dollar charitable foundation in 1992. Catherine Muther, a successful San Francisco executive, created a $5 million fund five years ago. And Tanny Crane, chief executive of her family's Columbus, OH, plastics company, donates at least $50,000 annually to her favorite charities.

The number of "women's funds," those in which women raise and distribute funds, often to women's causes, has grown from five in 1979 to 95 today.

Some of the largest foundations, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts, have women at the helm. And the fact that women now own a third of all privately held businesses means they control the purse strings more than ever.

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