Four nonprofits working to advance gender equality in the United States will receive $10 million each from a group of mega-donors that includes Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott. The commitment is part of a broader effort led by the two women to steer more philanthropic support, especially from billionaires and big foundations, to gender equality.
While Scott has contributed to efforts in concert with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, today’s gifts mark the first time the two philanthropists have combined their efforts personally. In 2019, Scott’s divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was made final, and in May French Gates and Bill Gates announced they were getting a divorce.
The commitment, called the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, also provided gifts of $4 million apiece to two other nonprofits focused on gender issues, with some of the money coming from the Schusterman Family Philanthropies.
Scott and French Gates have undertaken other efforts to support women’s causes. They each made commitments to the Gender Fund, for instance, but neither has disclosed how much. The pooled fund, run by Co-Impact, a giving circle of ultra-rich donors, aims to raise $1 billion in 10 years to help place women in leadership roles. French Gates’ support came through a gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation..
The total amount Scott has given to groups specifically working to promote gender equality — beyond the Gender Fund — is unclear. By her own tally, Scott had dedicated $133 million to the issue as of July 2020. Since then, she has made more than $6.8 billion in gifts.
In 2018, French Gates committed $1 billion personally to gender equality through her investment and philanthropic company Pivotal Ventures. Separately in June, the Gates foundation committed $2.1 billion over five years to support women’s financial well-being, improve the health of women and girls, and support family planning and leadership development globally.
Four Winners
The four grantees of the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge were chosen after a yearlong process in which Lever for Change, a MacArthur Foundation spin-off, held an open call for entries and used peer reviews and the advice of outside experts to examine applications from 550 organizations. The challenge was meant to spur nonprofits to develop new ways to work toward gender equality and to develop a roster of nonprofits ready for grants from other donors interested in the subject.
The process led to four winners: Building Women’s Equality Through Strengthening the Care Infrastructure, a coalition of organizations working ensure women caregivers receive better salaries or government assistance; Ada Developers Academy’s Changing the Face of Tech program, which provides technology training; Girls Inc.’s Project Accelerate, which provides career coaching; and the Future Is Indigenous Womxn, a project to support Native American women entrepreneurs.
The flow of money is necessary, said Nicole Bates, director of strategic partnerships and initiatives at Pivotal Ventures, to help women, particularly women of color, gain representation “in places where priorities are set and decisions are made.”
“We are generations away from women being in an equal position of power and influence as men,” she said. “And, simply put, that timeline is just too long for us.”
Connecting the Dots
In addition to the four challenge winners, the donors contributed $4 million each to two finalists. One of them, FreeForm is a nonprofit that helps survivors of domestic violence. The other, Ignite, trains women for political leadership.
The donors will also host a website to provide other grant makers a place to “mix and mingle and hopefully connect dots,” Bates said, explaining that there were many entries that didn’t get funded that should get a second look.
“Part of philanthropy’s responsibility isn’t just to extract the idea that we’re looking for,” she said. “It’s actually to provide space and shine a light on the agenda over all.”
