Melinda French Gates explains why she resigned from the Gates Foundation — and what she’ll do now

New York (CNN) — Melinda French Gates says that after the US Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision that let individual states decide abortion rights, the philanthropist felt compelled to offer Americans financial support for their reproductive freedoms — support that she says she had been giving exclusively overseas.

“While I have long focused on improving contraceptive access overseas, in the post-Dobbs era, I now feel compelled to support reproductive rights here at home,” French Gates said in an op-ed Tuesday in the New York Times. “For too long, a lack of money has forced organizations fighting for women’s rights into a defensive posture while the enemies of progress play offense. I want to help even the match.”

French Gates, one of the world’s wealthiest and most prominent philanthropists, resigned from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation earlier this month, announcing June 7 will be her last day at the organization she helped create more than two decades ago. As part of her divorce agreement, she received $12.5 billion from the Gates Foundation for her work upon her resignation, and she hinted she would focus her philanthropic efforts on women and girls — but she offered no specifics.

Tuesday, she gave the first details of her new plan.

French Gates said she will donate $1 billion through 2026 to advance women’s rights around the world through her organization, Pivotal Ventures. That will include $200 million in grants to organizations that are fighting for women’s reproductive rights.

Among those recipients is The 19th, a nonprofit news organization that reports on gender policy. “Pinch me,” Emily Ramshaw, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said in a post on X.

“Sometimes dreams do come true,” Ramshaw said in a blog post on the company’s website. “This support will bolster our critical politics and policy coverage in a seismic election year, allow us to make strategic investments in our audiences and our future, and lay the foundation for our long-term sustainability in a turbulent time for our industry.”

Another recipient, The Institute for Women’s Policy Research, said its grant will help advance its work to improve women’s health across the United States and narrow the gender pay gap.

“We are deeply honored to receive this support from Melinda French Gates, a true pioneer for women’s empowerment,” said Dr. Jamila Taylor, IWPR President and CEO, in a statement.

French Gates will also give $250 million in awards to organizations working to help improve women’s mental and physical health.

In an innovative effort that echoes those by mega-philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, French Gates also said she will grant $240 million to a group of 12 advocates and influential leaders around the world ($20 million each) to allow them to give the money to groups they believe are performing urgent and meaningful work in women’s health. Scott has shaken up the charitable world by shelling out large sums of money at rapid speed to organizations she favors — with no demands or strings attached.

“I’m also experimenting with novel tactics to bring a wider range of perspectives into philanthropy,” French Gates wrote in her op-ed. “I’m eager to see the landscape of funding opportunities through their eyes, and the results their approaches unlock.”

French Gates said the group of leaders includes former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, maternal-health advocate Allyson Felix and Afghan women’s education activist Shabana Basij-Rasikh.

In her op-ed, French Gates said she was once told to set her own agenda before someone else sets it — and that’s why she chose to leave the Gates Foundation.

She said naysayers about charitable efforts to empower women have frustrated her with their shortsightedness. She called America’s high maternal mortality rate “unconscionable” and decried America’s status as the only advanced economy without paid family leave at a national level.

Just 2% of donations in the United States go to organizations focused on women and girls, French Gates noted. But she said investments in women’s health will add significantly to the global economy.

“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,” she wrote in her op-ed.

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