Dachverband Schweizerischer Gemeinnütziger Frauen

Dachverband Schweizerischer Gemeinnütziger Frauen (SGF) formerly known as Schweizerischen Gemeinnützigen Frauenverein (SGF), is a women's organization in Switzerland, founded in 1888.[1]

The organization was founded by Emma Boos-Jegher, Emma Coradi-Stahl and Rosina Gschwind-Hofer, who had left the Schweizer Frauen-Verband. It became the first permanent, national umbrella organization for the Swiss women's movement. It aimed for a professionalization of women's work, which they traditionally saw in housework, health care and gardening.[2] It aimed to first educate the women and then also to find employment for them in order to make them useful members of the society.[2] For this, it built a hospital and schools which first received cantonal subsidies and from 1895 onwards also from the state due a law on the education of the women.[2] For the subsidies for their nursery school, the SGF reached an agreement with the Swiss army and the Red Cross according to which two thirds of the students would be involved in either of the two organization in the event of a war.[2] After the outbreak of World War I, the SGF was organizing the voluntary women's donations in addition to the war taxes meant as a compensation of the military service.[3] Neither the Social Democrats or the Catholic Women Organization (SKF) joined in.[3] The campaign was successful and in a widely publicized ceremony of 1916, the SGF gave the Federal Council the sum of 1 Million Swiss Francs.[3]