A widely unknown fact about the demographic of founders of Ottoman waqfs is that many of them were women; with the existence of their establishments having a crucial impact on their communities’ economic life. Out of 30,000 waqf certificates documented by the GDPFA (General Directorate of Pious Foundation in Ankara), over 2,300 of them were registered to institutions that belonged to women. And of the 491 public fountains in Istanbul that were constructed during the Ottoman period and survived until the 1930s, nearly 30% of them were registered under waqfs that belonged to women.