Melinda French Gates directs $12.5 billion toward underfunded women’s issues

Melinda French Gates resigned from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in May 2024, three years after her divorce, and took control of $12.5 billion to allocate on her own. Rather than dispersing the money across a wide array of causes, she is concentrating on women-focused issues that have historically received little funding, including menopause research, childcare infrastructure, domestic workers and women’s representation in finance and media.

Her concept of “time poverty,” based on International Labour Organisation data that women and girls perform 12.5 billion hours of unpaid work each day, underpins the strategy. In 2024 she announced a $1 billion pledge, splitting $200 million to U.S. groups like the National Women’s Law Center and Center for Reproductive Rights, $20 million each to leaders Jacinda Ardern and Shabana Basij-Rasikh, and $250 million for an open-call women’s health fund.

Additional allocations of $215 million for reproductive and midlife health and $10 million raised at an Olivia Rodrigo benefit were added in 2026. All funding flows through Pivotal, the philanthropic firm she founded in 2015, reflecting a decade-old conviction rather than a reaction to personal events.