Melinda French Gates announced Tuesday that she will donate $1 billion over the next two years to charities and other groups that focus on women and families.
Earlier in May, she said she would step down from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and pursue new philanthropic pursuits.
French Gates, who divorced Microsoft founder Bill Gates in 2021, wrote in The New York Times that now is the time to invest in women’s issues.
“Decades of research on economics, well-being and governance make it clear that investing in women and girls benefits everyone,” she wrote.
French Gates said her work will focus on a variety of issues facing women, including sexual violence in conflict zones abroad, the role of women in government and maternal health. She specifically outlined a need to work against maternal mortality in the U.S. and toward reproductive freedom.
“Women in 14 states have lost the right to terminate a pregnancy under almost any circumstances,” she wrote. “We remain the only advanced economy without any form of national paid family leave. And the number of teenage girls experiencing suicidal thoughts and persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness is at a decade high.”
“When we allow this cause to go so chronically underfunded, we all pay the cost,” she continued. “As shocking as it is to contemplate, my 1-year-old granddaughter may grow up with fewer rights than I had.”
French Gates said her giving is organized through her organization Pivotal Ventures, and has already worked toward grants for the National Women’s Law Center, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“As a young woman, I could never have imagined that one day I would be part of an effort like this,” she said. “Because I have been given this extraordinary opportunity, I am determined to do everything I can to seize it and to set an agenda that helps other women and girls set theirs, too.”