Paris Hilton is expanding her philanthropic push for women entrepreneurs by launching a national disaster-recovery fund aimed at women-owned small businesses, The Associated Press reported.
Hilton said the initiative will help businesses recover after disasters by providing immediate, unrestricted support to owners, and she framed the effort as a way to lift up businesses that she described as central to local communities. She announced the effort Monday, according to the report.
Hilton said she is donating $350,000 to kick-start the Back in Business Recovery Fund, and she said the organizers are aiming to raise at least $1 million by the end of March. In making the case for the fund, Hilton told AP that “Women-owned businesses are really the heart of so many of these communities,” adding that she wanted to “lift up and support them” and “really make a difference in their lives.”
The new initiative is planned as a partnership between Hilton’s social impact organization, 11:11 Media Impact, and GoFundMe.org, which the report described as the nonprofit partner to the fundraising platform GoFundMe. AP reported that GoFundMe.org will contribute $100,000 to the fund’s launch.
Hilton and the organizations previously supported women entrepreneurs after the 2025 Los Angeles fires. AP reported that Hilton, through 11:11 Media Impact, and GoFundMe.org deployed over $1 million in cash grants to 50 women-owned small businesses after the fires destroyed Hilton’s own Malibu home.
The report said that the grants went to owners of businesses including child care centers, bakeries, bookshops, dance studios and salons that were damaged by the Eaton fire, which devastated the Altadena community. AP also reported that the grants were up to $25,000 and were described as helping cover rent, payroll, replacing equipment and rebuilding.
One of the grantees AP identified was Renata Ortega, who runs Orla Floral Studio in a converted garage beside the Altadena home she shared with her husband and three dogs. Ortega told AP that “Nothing prepares you for that amount of loss,” and that she did not think she would be able to “get back on my feet” because it “took me years” to rebuild the inventory she had before the fire, AP reported.
Ortega said the grant helped her pay a deposit on a studio space and buy a floral cooler, and she said her business is now “booked and busy.” AP reported that Ortega said the support helped her keep her staff and that she is hoping to hire another employee soon, adding that the grant “directly went into getting us back into business, but actually back and better than ever.”
AP reported that the new Back in Business Recovery Fund will also work with women’s business centers across the country, described in the report as there being about 150 local centers. Hilton said relationships built through the Los Angeles program helped shape the national effort, and the report said the fund will distribute unrestricted grants through the centers to identify impacted women quickly.
The AP report said organizers will look to women business centers to assess impacts and make decisions about when to activate the fund. It also quoted Rebecca Grone, director of 11:11 Media Impact, saying that women, and especially minority women, receive disproportionately less investment than men through venture capital and loan financing, and that “They are the most undercapitalized and underresourced,” with “increased recovery burden” when primary caregiving responsibilities fall on them.
GoFundMe.org executive director Amanda Brown Lierman told AP that collaborating with women’s business centers is “really key to the success.” She also said decisions on when to activate the fund would be informed by outreach to the centers to assess impacts, according to the report.
AP said Hilton released a YouTube series called “Back in Business” highlighting some of the Los Angeles business owners, and that some of the Los Angeles grantees—including Ortega—will join Hilton Monday afternoon to ring the New York Stock Exchange closing bell to mark International Women’s Day, which was March 8, the report said.
As for what comes next, Hilton said in the AP account that she hopes the project inspires others to donate and give back, and she described the exchange bell moment as showing “the power of women when they come together.”