Philanthropist Melinda French Gates has pledged $215 million towards contraceptive and maternal health support, including funding research into menopause.
The new pledge pushes Gates’ women’s health philanthropy over the $600 million in the two years since she stepped down from her role at The Gates Foundation, the $89 billion philanthropy led by her former husband Bill Gates.
In an interview with the Associated Press, French Gates described women’s health as ‘fundamental’ to her philanthropic work with Pivotal Ventures.
‘The role of philanthropy, in my opinion, is to look at some of these societal problems that have been left behind, and shine light on them, show ways of making progress so you can then crowd in other donors and ultimately crowd in government funding,’ said French Gates, adding that she hoped to send a ‘signal’ about the importance of women’s health funding.
The Menopause Society, one of Gates’ latest grantees, told the Associated Press that philanthropy would fill underfunded areas of research, especially given state funding withdrawal in the US.
‘I think philanthropy is going to fill a greater role than it ever has in the past because we are just not going to have the same type of government funding that we’ve had before,’ said Dr Stephanie Faubion, medical director of The Menopause Society and director of The Mayo Clinic’s Center for Women’s Health.
‘Funding is hard to come by these days – much, much harder than it was before. And the need hasn’t gone away. We still have to do the research somehow.’
French Gates’ focus on women’s health and reproductive rights signalled a major pivot away from her time at the Gates Foundation (formerly the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
In 2024, she pledged to give away $1 billion towards women’s health and reproductive rights. In September last year, Pivotal announced a $100 million partnership to help accelerate women’s health research.
French Gates has, in total, received over $10 billion towards her four foundations, including Pivotal.
In February, French Gates spoke out after a batch of files implicated her ex-husband with serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying that she felt ‘happy to be away from the muck’.
Shafi Musaddique is the news editor at Alliance magazine.
