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As Melinda French Gates leaves the Gates Foundation, many hope she’ll double down on gender equity
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FILE - Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Melinda French Gates smiles as she leaves the Elysee Palace, June 23, 2023, in Paris. Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit shone of the largest philanthropic foundations in the world that she helped her ex-husband Bill Gates found more than 20 years ago. - photo by AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File
NEW YORK (AP) — Melinda French Gates is already one of the biggest philanthropic supporters of gender equity in the United States and is now poised to put another $12.5 billion toward intractable problems like closing the gender pay gap and increasing women's political participation, her grantees hope. The additional funds come as French Gates announced Monday that she was stepping down as co-chair of the Gates Foundation, which she founded together with her ex-husband Bill Gates more than 20 years ago. Gates will provide the $12.5 billion as part of an agreement made when they divorced in 2021.