When Melinda French Gates announced the recipients of Action for Women’s Health, her $250 million global open call, she provided this sobering perspective: “In the 25 years I’ve worked on women’s health, I’ve been struck by a grim reality that connects women across contexts and continents: No matter where you are in the world, if you live in a woman’s body, you are likely to face a unique set of barriers to receiving the care you need to live a full and healthy life.”
The Action for Women’s Health awardees — 80-plus organizations from around the globe — are chipping away at those barriers. The open call, which was funded by Pivotal, French Gates’ philanthropy, and managed by Lever for Change, was launched last fall. Over 4,000 organizations from 119 countries applied for participation in Lever for Change’s rigorous, multi-step review process. In the end, more than 80 organizations were awarded between $1 million and $5 million.
Action for Women’s Health is part of French Gates’ $1 billion commitment, announced in 2024, “for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States,” as she wrote in The New York Times. French Gates created Pivotal in 2015, long before the end of her marriage, but since her split with both Bill and the Gates Foundation, she has launched a number of bold initiatives in support of girls and women.
Health is a recurring theme in French Gates’ giving, because, as she points out, without good health, women cannot flourish. “I want to see women everywhere making decisions, controlling resources, and shaping policies and perspectives — but women can’t do well unless they can be well.”
What kinds of organizations and work received funding?
The 80-plus recipients of French Gates’ open call span the globe and address women’s health in a variety of ways and across a broad range of ages and life stages. “Yet, despite the importance of their work, many of the awardees announced today have historically lacked access to major funding streams,” the announcement read.
Some Action for Women’s Health recipients address reproductive and maternal health; others focus on other women’s health-related issues — all through a community lens. The India-based Cancer Awareness Prevention and Early Detection Trust (CAPED), for example, works to reduce cervical and other cancers through community outreach, education and screening. The Seattle Indian Health Board provides healthcare and works to reduce maternal mortality in Native communities. The Melissa Network of Migrant Women in Greece provides support to refugee and migrant women. We Care Solar equips remote, frontline health facilities in Africa with solar devices to provide lighting, and support medical equipment and mobile communication. And the Baltimore-based Women’s Housing Coalition connects individuals and families experiencing homelessness with housing, healthcare, employment services and other supports. (See the complete list of awardees).
“We believe the best agents for change are those closest to the challenges,” said Cecilia Conrad, Lever for Change’s CEO. “[The awardees] are bringing forward powerful, community-informed ideas that address urgent health inequities women face every day and are seeking funding to implement their plans. Philanthropy alone cannot close every gap, but it can shine a light and create momentum for change.”
More funding needed as women’s health comes under attack
When French Gates unveiled Action for Women’s Health last October, she couldn’t know how timely that commitment would turn out to be. It was October and the U.S. presidential election was still several weeks away. At the time, it wasn’t yet clear who would win the election, and no one knew that the new administration would launch a wholesale attack on women’s health — particularly women’s reproductive health.
In its first year, the Trump administration appears to be advancing what Guttmacher has described as the right’s “quiet war on contraception.” Given the GOP’s track record on abortion and the 2022 Dobbs decision, it’s not surprising that anything remotely abortion-related has been a target for the administration. But the White House has taken aim at reproductive health and family planning services as well — from defunding Planned Parenthood to preventing already-purchased contraceptives from being distributed in Africa, leaving them to molder in a Belgian warehouse instead.
The team at PAI, an Action for Women’s Health awardee, is dismayed but not deterred by the administration’s actions. The organization, which joined more than 70 organizations to urge the administration to release the warehoused contraceptives, has worked for 60 years to “advance universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights” around the world.
“It’s a massive shock to the system when the United States abandons family planning and reproductive health, because over the years it has been such an incredible leader,” said Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, PAI’s CEO. “Of course, there have been ebbs and flows, depending on the administration, but we have continued to demonstrate and ensure that support and funding for family planning and reproductive health around the world continues.”
Kazi Hutchins acknowledged that the Action for Women’s Health award came as sensational news in a demoralizing season. “The timing of this award from Pivotal could not have come at a more meaningful and consequential time — not just for PAI but also for our movement,” she said. “For Melinda French Gates to prioritize this and recognize that reproductive health and freedom is so core to the progress of women — it’s absolutely extraordinary.”
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PAI’s experience as an Action for Women’s Health applicant and recipient
When Kazi Hutchins learned about the award and that PAI received $5 million, the maximum award amount, she burst into tears. “I was crying and shaking because I have great belief in PAI — but there were 4,000 entries!” she said.
Lever for Change’s multi-step review process included both peer review and evaluation by an external panel of experts. Kazi Hutchins found the peer review process particularly gratifying. “It was just so validating that other colleagues, who are our peers, saw the value and the urgency of our work and PAI’s leadership,” she said. “And it was inspiring for us to see the great work that our peers are doing. So even if PAI didn’t make it to the end, we knew the funds would be going to extraordinary organizations that are making a meaningful difference.”
Along with the funding, awardee organizations will be included in Lever for Change’s Bold Solutions Network, which aims to provide ongoing networking, learning and funding opportunities.
The PAI team is still deciding how it will use its Action for Women’s Health dollars. “We have yet to map out all the specifics around that,” Kazi Hutchins said. “A part is going to be invested in supporting advocates in the United States that are working for domestic and global reproductive rights. We’re also going to be prioritizing and investing in the global work. That is, working to close the gap on family planning and reproductive health access, supporting civil society movements and grassroots organizations in our priority countries, and ensuring that this entire movement not only has the knowledge and the data, but also the tools to hold leadership accountable.”
Some of the funds will support Freedom Starts With Her, a new PAI initiative that seeks to provide people in the U.S. with information and advocacy skills. Kazi Hutchins came up with the idea when she was talking to U.S. college students, and a young woman asked how to build an advocacy campaign to change policy for family planning and reproductive health — a campaign like those PAI has helped build in other parts of the world.
“It was like a light bulb went off for me,” she said. “I realized this next generation has never had to do that, because they were not in a time of crisis where their reproductive rights were essentially on a path to be completely erased and dismantled. I realized that this is something young people in the United States can be learning from our youth networks across Africa, across Latin America, and across Asia.”
Why Melinda French Gates’ women’s health support is so encouraging right now
It’s been interesting to watch French Gates’ philanthropy evolve as she has stepped up her giving in recent years, bolstering causes from research on women’s health to advancing women’s political power and their influence in the workplace. Pivotal has also focused on care, duties that still primarily fall to women.
Many observers, including IP editor David Callahan, have compared French Gates’ evolving giving to that of MacKenzie Scott. As he wrote recently, “Her philanthropy looks little like the technocratic grantmaking of the foundation she and Bill built together, and much more like the unorthodox cash drops favored by MacKenzie Scott, which research shows have been highly effective.” Of course, Scott gives to a wide array of groups and causes, while French Gates has zeroed in on women and women’s health. But like Scott, French Gates is making large, transformative gifts; she also appears intent on giving much of her wealth away, as Scott has promised to do. And with a fortune that hovers around $30 billion, according to Forbes, she has a lot to work with.
The funds couldn’t come at a better time, given the current administration’s efforts to undermine women’s access to healthcare. That’s why, for Kazi Hutchins, the Action for Women’s Health award is so important. PAI has received funding from the Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Packard Foundation, and other funders over the years, but the size of the recent award and the recognition that comes with it will allow the organization to meet an especially difficult moment.
“Pivotal has demonstrated great leadership and great courage to stand by women and their reproductive health,” Kazi Hutchins said. “If anyone was looking for permission to support and to bring forward — not only their courageous dollars, but also their courageous voice — they have the example of Melinda French Gates. To have Pivotal say ‘we’re going to support you in your mission’ — it’s such a validator that we are on the right path, and that this is a fight worth fighting, and that we have important champions by our side who are not going to be invisible on this issue.”
