FILE - In this Thursday, July 1, 2021, file photo, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, poses for photographers as she arrives for a meeting after a meeting on the sideline of the gender equality conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris.
French Gates touched upon the high maternal mortality rates in the U.S., noting that Black and Native American mothers are at the highest risk. Teresa Younger, the president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, who also received a grant, has long called on donors to give unrestricted, multi-year funding to organizations. She praised French Gates' new commitment as a part of a larger trend of major women donors giving generously to nonprofits.
French Gates' Pivotal Ventures is a limited liability company that also manages investments for profit ventures, so there is little public information about its grantmaking or the assets it manages. Pivotal Ventures has focused on a number of avenues to increase women’s economic and political participation and power, like closing the wage gap, compensating care work often done by women, and encouraging women to run for political office.