SWANEE HUNT’s private foundation supports the Initiative for Inclusive Security, which brokers relationships between 500 "women waging peace" and thousands of policymakers across the world. The project was incubated at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where Hunt is the founding director of the Women and Public Policy Program. In her recently released autobiography, Half-Life of a Zealot, Hunt writes candidly about her life as the youngest child of H.L. Hunt, the Texas oil magnate who detested both communism and organized philanthropy. She relates stories of two marriages, her daughter’s mental illness, her ambassadorship under the Clinton administration and the Hunt Alternatives Fund, which has spent nearly $60 million to, as she describes it, "provoke social change."

I grew up with people who took great risks for the sake of an ideal. My parents were raised on farms, with little formal education. From my mother I learned generous profusion, and from the Hunts I learned the art of throwing expectations aside, stretching beyond my expertise and knowledge to engage in whatever reality intrudes impolitely on my life.

SWANEE HUNT (left) talks to Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Hunt worked with Liberia to get out the women’s vote. (Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office.)

My conservative father would be bemused to see his role in shaping my worldview. I think he would take satisfaction in the number of ways I’ve followed in his footsteps. Like him, I believe that those who are privileged have an obligation to serve. Like him, I churn out articles and books, speaking here, there and everywhere. However different our assessment of what the world needs politically might have been, it was my father’s disregard for boundaries that gave me the gumption to tackle those needs. But it was through watching the difficulties of my mother’s life that I was compelled to notice how women tend to be pushed aside.

Although I fought for a voice in our family, I’ve ended up more as an outsider. In a way, that’s OK. After all, I have always thought of myself as belonging to the world rather than a country—or a family. My father was an ardent anticommunist, and at our dinner table we learned about Khrushchev’s Russia and Castro’s Cuba. These discussions gave me a sense of the larger world. Another strong influence for me was Southern Baptist fundamentalism; at church camp I committed myself to a life as a missionary. I suppose I have been, in my own way.

A UN official told me that the warlords won't have woman on their teams because they're afraid the woman will compromise. Bingo.

Despite the global reach of my imagination, in my early adult years I focused on Denver’s domestic problems, like education and inner city jobs. I wasn’t involved with foreign affairs until President Clinton appointed me ambassador to Austria. Three women made that happen: During the 1992 presidential campaign, Merle Chambers, who ran an oil company and a trucking company, urged me to match her donation. Then Hillary Clinton and I enjoyed working together. The third was Congresswoman Pat Schroeder. When Pat told me, "You should be in an embassy," I said I couldn’t possibly—as a member of Common Cause I had fought campaign contributors being rewarded with positions. She unceremoniously told me to "get over it." Women leading women. Now I take it upon myself to inspire other women to follow and fund their passion.

My passion became supporting women trying to stop war. When I was ambassador to Vienna, we had 70,000 Yugoslavian refugees streaming across the border. They came with tales of a grandfather forced to eat his grandson’s liver, or a sister raped by four men in front of her father. I thought of Nazi Germany. I had always wondered how the decision-makers of that era could sit at their big mahogany desks and let Hitler happen. There I was in Vienna, sitting at a big mahogany desk. I was a decision-maker.

I had to do something. We hosted three international conferences and organized humanitarian efforts, including helping Queen Noor of Jordan deliver medicine and blankets to Bosnia. I hosted negotiations between two of the three warring parties—represented exclusively by men. Most important, though, was that I kept leaning on Washington to intervene.

Out of that experience came a curiosity about why women are not included in peace talks. A UN official told me that the warlords won’t have women on their teams because they’re afraid the women will compromise. Bingo.

In my work in this field, I’ve been impressed with what women in conflict-riddled areas do to stabilize their countries. In 2005, I backed Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s successful run for president of Liberia, a country with 80 percent illiteracy, no electricity or running water, ripped apart by 14 years of war. One day that summer, I was out on my husband’s sailboat when I received a message on my BlackBerry from Liberia’s minister of gender. She was trying to figure out how to get women returning from refugee camps to register to vote. I remember sitting with my thoughts racing and thumbs tapping out what must have been a five-page document—about dividing up the country, having regional captains and figuring out how they would travel because there are almost no roads. Despite such challenges, they managed to organize—and the women voted.

Supporting Liberia has become a family affair. My 36-year-old son has made a documentary, The Iron Ladies of Liberia, and my 19-year-old staffed a delegation I led to train women in the parliament. I’ve used my wealth to go into countries like Bosnia, Rwanda, Afghanistan and Iraq to consult with women leaders and cajole high-level officials. We recently worked with 120 women in Sudan and came away with a list of 20 stars who could stand before the UN Security Council or CNN to let the world know what can be done to stop the genocide.

Hunt Alternatives Fund created the Initiative for Inclusive Security to change a whole public policy paradigm. Because elevating women’s influence can shorten (or even prevent) conflicts, it needs to become second nature to policymakers that when there is trouble, they support the women trying to stop it. But there is a research and development element. We’ve completed and disseminated 15 field studies to demonstrate the difference women make.

I put around $2.5 million a year into this collaborative effort, working with embassies, the UN and the World Bank to put on conferences with female government and grass-roots leaders. We bring the women to the U.S., where our 10-person staff facilitates meetings with government officials. In February, we’ll bring 15 Afghan women parliamentarians to meet with NATO officials in Brussels. We’re filling a niche; without this organizing, the women who are standing up to warlords remain invisible and unsupported.

I have no idea what I’ll do after this. For now, this work energizes me. As the young Anne Frank said, "No one ever becomes poor by giving."