The ERA: Forward to Fruition
Betty Folliard is a nationally known thought leader and political strategist. She is Founder of ERA Minnesota - an organization dedicated to passing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) into our state & federal constitutions.
A former three-term Minnesota Legislator, Ms. Folliard served six years in the Minnesota House. She has worked in government at the local, state, & national levels: as Hopkins School Board Vice Chair; as State Representative in the Minnesota House, and as Community Representative in the Office of Congressman Keith Ellison.
Betty’s first career was in the Arts. She earned a BA in Drama from Stanford University & MFA from Wayne State University, then directed & performed nationally & internationally. With a background in sales, marketing, and market research, she co-owned a business and political consulting firm called Strategy Partners.
In 2007, Ms. Folliard volunteered with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to muck out houses after the Hurricane Katrina. To better understand global challenges women face, Betty volunteered on missions in Peru & Rarotonga, Mozambique & Haiti; and travelled with women leaders to study the economic status of women in Israel, Palestine, India & Bangladesh. In 2022, she travelled to the Texas/Mexico border to help newly arrived immigrants in San Juan, the poorest county in the U.S.
In 2014, Betty founded ERA Minnesota (www.eramn.org) to revitalize the Equal Rights Amendment movement in Minnesota, which earned her the Minnesota Women’s Press Changemaker Award. She executive produced and hosted a feminist, progressive talk show. Among various recognitions and awards, in 2017, Ms. Folliard received the Minnesota Women’s Summit Committee ‘Woman of Distinction Award’.
Betty is an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, and in 2018 served as a National Presbyterian Delegate to the United Nations 62nd Commission on the Status of Women. Ms. Folliard served on many boards & commissions and was the first Board Chair of nonprofit law firm Gender Justice, as well as Board Chair of PRISM, a social services agency.
In 2022, Ms. Folliard sat on Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s Women’s Task Force on Expanding Economic Security that presented a report to the Minnesota Legislature listing 115 needed law changes to improve women’s economic status. In 2023, she led the successful effort to pass a resolution telling Congress to enact the ERA.
Mother of three, grandmother of three, Betty loves to sing, cook, dance, hike in the woods, and her true passion is the full emancipation of women worldwide.