Melinda French Gates launches $250 million global fund for women’s wellness

In May 2024, Pivotal founder, Melinda French Gates, announced she was committing an additional $1 billion - to be spent over the next two years - to advance women’s power globally.

Pivotal Ventures was founded by Melinda French Gates to accelerate the pace of social progress by removing barriers that hold people back. Through high-impact investments, philanthropy, partnerships, and advocacy, Pivotal note they are “working to get more power in the hands of more people - especially women.”

The $250 million fund is open to organisations worldwide that serve women, have a record of improving women’s mental or physical health, centre equity in their approach, and are poised to scale their work. Successful applicants will receive funding between $1 million and $5 million.

Pivotal Ventures President, Brooke D. Anderson advised "we see expanding women’s power and influence not as a single issue but rather as a prerequisite to progress on more or less every issue."

As part of their commitment to accelerating the pace of social progress, Pivotal Ventures has launched Action for Women’s Health, a $250 million global open call, managed by Lever for Change, that will fund organisations working to improve women’s mental and physical health. These grants will be funded by Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation.

Pivotal released the following statement:

“For far too long, women’s health has been underfunded, overlooked, and misunderstood. There’s so much we don’t know about women’s mental and physical health, but the data we do have shows that women are being neglected.

“Women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health compared to men, yet millions of women around the world can’t access the health care they need. Globally, we lose nearly 800 women every day to preventable pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications. More than 1 billion women and girls suffer from malnutrition, and more women than men are living with depression and anxiety.

“These health inequities not only impact women’s daily lives, but they can also hurt women’s futures. Because when women are navigating health issues and can’t get quality care, it can become harder for them to pursue the opportunities they want and participate fully in society. The long-term impact this has—not only on women, but on their families, communities, and economies—cannot be ignored.

“It’s clear we need to do a better job of addressing the barriers to women’s health. The good news is that there are so many organisations around the world doing just that. We want to ensure they get the attention and funding they deserve - including through our open call. Ultimately, all of our futures depend on the investments we make in health today.”

Haven Ley, Senior Vice President of Program Strategy, Investment, and Communication and Chief Strategy Officer at Pivotal Ventures added "we hope that this open call will be a catalyst for future change, leading to more funding, more partnerships, more innovation, and more models to scale."

Interested organisations are invited to visit womenshealth.leverforchange.org for more information regarding eligibility.

Applicants must register to apply before 4 p.m. US Central Time on Tuesday, 3rd December 2024. Once registered, applicants must submit an online application before 4 p.m. US Central Time on Friday, 10th January 2025.

Action for Women’s Health will be managed by Lever for Change, a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that connects funders with bold solutions to the world’s biggest problems-including issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity, and climate change.