More than 80 organizations that provide global health care for women received grants Wednesday totaling $250 million from Melinda French Gates after a yearlong application process. French Gates said the majority of recipients of the Action for Women's Health challenge haven't previously received funding from her organization, Pivotal, or from the Gates Foundation, which she founded with ex-husband Bill Gates, and stepped away from last year. "It will be instructive for the world to see what it looks like when organizations like this aren't so chronically underfunded," French Gates tells the AP, which receives funding from Pivotal for news coverage.
The grants, ranging between $1 million and $5 million, were awarded via a competition open to nonprofit organizations from most countries. French Gates said the point of holding such an open call is to learn about groups that aren't already known to major funders. The Chicago-based Lever for Change nonprofit ran the application process and said more than 4,000 organizations from 119 countries applied. "This seems to be a topic that resonates," says Lever for Change CEO Cecilia Conrad of global women's health. "So I'm excited about helping to uplift and elevate the profile of these organizations with other funders."
This is the second largest funding competition that Lever for Change has hosted, after MacKenzie Scott gave $640 million to community-based nonprofits in the US in March 2024. The investment in global women's health organizations is part of a $1 billion commitment that French Gates made to support women's rights over two years. She also gave $20 million each to 12 individuals to distribute to nonprofits of their choice and has pledged $150 million to boost gender equity in workplaces.
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Some recipients of Pivotal's funding are developing new tools to reach women who've been left behind. Sabine Bolonhini and Adriana Mallet, co-founders of SAS Brasil, use telemedicine and mobile clinics to provide specialized care to patients in Brazil, who otherwise would have to travel long distances. "For us, it's ... using [the funding] responsibly and being a good role model for how this money can find solutions that no one else has found yet," Bolonhini says. More here.
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