Melinda French Gates no longer giving most of her wealth to Gates Foundation

Melinda French Gates will distribute her wealth to different philanthropic groups instead of donating the majority of her fortune to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, according to multiple reports. 

French Gates addressed her new plans in a published letter to the Giving Pledge website, which was founded by Bill and Melinda Gates alongside Warren Buffet in 2010 and encourages ultra-wealthy Americans to donate the bulk of their wealth to working to end society’s largest problems.

“I recognize the absurdity of so much wealth being concentrated in the hands of one person, and I believe the only responsible thing to do with a fortune this size is give it away—as thoughtfully and impactfully as possible. The ultimate goal of any philanthropist should be to render the need for philanthropy obsolete,” French Gates wrote. 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the world’s largest philanthropy groups. 

Melinda and Bill Gates announced their divorce in 2021.

French Gates previously had committed to funneling she and her husband’s wealth through their philanthropic foundation, though speculation on how their divorce would affect those plans began when the couple announced their split, Forbes reported.

Multi-billionaire French Gates founded an investment firm called Pivotal Ventures in 2015 that focuses on “innovative solutions to problems affecting U.S. women and families,” according to Bloomberg. 

In 2019, French Gates committed to donating $1 billion to Pivotal Ventures in the span of a decade in order to uplift gender equality, Forbes reports. 

French Gates has also partnered with MacKenzie Scott, the 26th richest person on earth, who has recently become a major scale philanthropist following her 2019 divorce from Jeff Bazos, Bloomberg reports. 

French Gates has teamed up with Scott to kickstart the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, alongside The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, in order to support gender equality.