MacKenzie Scott, Melinda Gates donate $40 mn to gender equality projects

Philanthropists MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates on Thursday partnered up to give away $40 million to four organisations that promote gender equality in tech, higher education, caregiving and minority communities.

The projects are the winners of The Equality Can't Wait Challenge, a funding competition launched in June 2020 by Gates' investment company Pivotal Ventures, with support from Scott and her husband Dan Jewett, and billionaire philanthropist Lynn Schusterman's foundation. The awardees were selected from a pool of more than 550 applicants.

The challenge was labelled 'the first competition centered on gender and equality in the US with an award of this magnitude and an opportunity to invest in and empower women leaders.' Expanding women's power and influence in the US over the next decade was its primary goal.

Each project will be awarded $10 million, with an additional $8 million split between two finalists working on issues of domestic violence and training young women "to flex their political power."

Many of these issues have become particularly important due to the pandemic's outsized impact on women, which have set gender equality back by years, according to experts.

"We can break the patterns of history and advance gender equality, but we must commit to lifting up organizations, like the ones receiving awards today, that are ready to lift up women and girls," Gates said in a statement. Scott added the awardees are "strong teams working on the front lines and from within communities to help women build power in their lives and careers."

Gates and Scott, who were formerly married to tech founders Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos respectively, have become powerful philanthropists in their own rights. Both women, who are among the richest people in the world, have signed The Giving Pledge, promising to give away the majority of their wealth in their lifetimes.

Edited by Rupashree Ravi

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