Carolyn Fountain was elected the 25th president of national Woman’s Missionary Union during the WMU Missions Celebration and Annual Meeting on June 7 in Orlando.
A native of Tallulah, Louisiana, Fountain brings decades of missions involvement, discipleship ministry and denominational leadership to the role.
Her passion for missions traces back to her childhood, where she watched her grandmother, Mattie Israel, care for neighbors throughout the Tallulah community. That example of service left a lasting impression and helped shape Fountain’s commitment to ministry.
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After moving to Atlanta with her husband in 1979, Fountain became involved with WMU. Over the years, she served in a variety of ministry and denominational roles, including campus ministry in Alabama and leadership training for women.
Throughout her service, Fountain developed a strong commitment to discipleship, believing women’s ministry should do more than provide fellowship. Instead, she has emphasized equipping women to grow in their faith, engage in missions and make disciples. She later helped launch Sisters Who Care, a ministry designed to increase WMU’s reach among Black women, and eventually became the first Black woman elected president of Louisiana WMU. She also is the first Black woman elected as president of National WMU.
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Fountain works as an instructor with the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home and Family Ministries’ Women’s Learning Center, tutoring women in reading and writing as they work to earn a state-issued high school equivalency credential via the High School Equivalency Test.
She and her husband of 48 years, Leroy, are members of The Well in Monroe, a church plant of First Baptist Church of West Monroe. The couple works with churches across Northwest Louisiana to help pastors of church plants and revitalization efforts incorporate missions into their strategies for church health.
