Melinda French Gates will give $250 million to assist women’s health around the world via an open call for charities to apply for funding.
The contribution, unveiled Wednesday, marks a new chapter in her private philanthropic giving since leaving the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation earlier this year. It is part of a two-year, $1 billion commitment made by French Gates in May to support women and families around the world.
Haven Ley, chief strategy officer at French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, said the grant competition is a “curtain raiser” for a potential new focus on funding women’s health globally. Previously, Pivotal mostly supported organizations striving to enhance women’s power in the United States.
“By focusing on women’s health, she’s expanded her definition of women’s power to include a precondition that women must have their health to be powerful,” Ley added, referring to French Gates, who has also spent 20 years funding global health through the Gates Foundation.
Melinda French Gates Will Give $250M To Women’s Health Groups Globally Through A New Open Call
Lever for Change, a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is running the Action for Women’s Health grant competition. It previously collaborated with French Gates and wealthy novelist and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott to grant $40 million in 2019 to NGOs promoting women’s empowerment in the United States. Scott then distributed $640 million to community-based groups in March via a similar open call.
This new open appeal will provide at least 100 charity groups worldwide with unlimited funding ranging from $1 million to $5 million. It will prioritize donating to groups for which that amount will make a significant difference, however, there is no limit on the size of organizations eligible to apply. The deadline for organizations to register for the open call is December 3, and the application deadline, review process, and final decision will extend until the end of 2025.
The lengthy procedure includes both peer evaluation by other applicants and an independent review by a team of specialists.
“Most philanthropy remains invitation-only decision making behind closed doors,” stated Cecilia Conrad, CEO of Lever For Change. “And what we have developed is a way to do an open call, a way to broaden access to philanthropic opportunities, that is also a process that is humane and equitable.”
She explained that their early strategy centered on growing a solution, with donors committing $10 million over five years, but they are now also helping donors who want to scale a field.
Pivotal is also examining a wide range of interventions for women’s health, including mental health and menopause, according to Ley. They expect that understanding about funding and resource constraints would help Pivotal build its new strategy, she explained.
Sarah Baird, a professor at The George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, investigates the effects of various treatments on teenagers, particularly females, and what factors contribute to their overall well-being and that of their children.
In general, she would advise donors to engage with existing institutions and to broaden their emphasis rather than concentrating on a single disease. She identified mental health for both men and women as a neglected issue, as well as gender-based violence and the economic benefits that women provide if they are well enough to work.
“We’re not going to get very far if we just focus on traditional pregnancy and traditional mortality,” she added, emphasizing that these are also important.
When French Gates originally announced her $1 billion commitment in May, she included $200 million in new awards to organizations working in the United States to preserve women’s rights and increase their power and influence. She also handed 12 people $20 million each to donate however they wanted, and she promised to have an open call to give away $250 million this fall.
Melinda French Gates Will Give $250M To Women’s Health Groups Globally Through A New Open Call
In an op-ed for the New York Times in May, she said of the open call, “I wish to elevate up groups with personal links to the issues they work on. People on the front lines should receive the attention and investment they deserve, including from me.
Historically, giving to organizations that support women and girls accounted for less than 2% of all charitable donations in the United States. On Tuesday, the Women & Girls Index, which analyzes donations to these organizations, revealed that they received $10.2 billion in philanthropic support in 2021, the most recent year of comprehensive giving statistics available.
That figure is a significant milestone in terms of raw cash, according to Jacqueline Ackerman, interim director of Indiana University’s Women’s Philanthropy Institute. However, she stated that in ten years of analyzing these donations, giving to women and girls had never increased faster than overall giving.
“To surpass that really means not just the Melinda French Gateses, but stepping up donations from everyone who cares about these issues across the income and wealth spectrums,” said Mrs. French.
SOURCE | AP
