Large Foundations Archives

Ms. Foundation Welcomes Rene Redwood and Four New Board Members

The Ms. Foundation welcomes Rene Redwood, Gwen Chapman, Charline Gipson, Diane Manuel, and Pamela Shifman to its Board of Directors.

The Ms. Foundation has announced the return of Rene Redwood (bottom left) and the addition of Diane Manuel (top center), Charline Gipson (top right), Gwen Chapman (bottom center) and Pamela Shifman (bottom right) to its Board of Directors. (Image credits: Ms. Foundation for Women)

Today, the Ms. Foundation for Women announced the return of Rene Redwood and Gwen Chapman, Charline Gipson, Diane Manuel, and Pamela Shifman as new members of its distinguished Board of Directors. These additions bring background in finance along with expertise in environmental, social, and governance issues (ESG) through the lens of gender and race equity.

How is New York Women’s Fdn Supporting Underserved Communities?

The New York Women’s Foundation has given nearly $3M in grants to organizations helping underserved communities post-pandemic.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 14: The group Developing Artists performs onstage during the 32nd Anniversary Celebrating Women Breakfast at Marriott Marquis on May 14, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images for The — NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 14: The group Developing Artists performs onstage during the 32nd Anniversary Celebrating Women Breakfast at Marriott Marquis on May 14, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images for The New York Women’s Foundation)

On June 28th, The New York Women’s Foundation announced almost $3 million in grants reflecting the organization’s fundamental strategy of early and long-term investment in community-rooted organizations led by women and gender expansive people addressing critical issues in underinvested communities. The Foundation’s latest round of grants are critically important to women, gender expansive people and their families in a post-COVID reality. The Foundation is charging ahead and bolstering investments in advancing racial equity, ending mass incarceration in New York City, increasing economic stability for low-income families, and eliminating gender-based violence.

Melinda Receives WPI Award, Urges More Philanthropy Led by Women

Melinda French Gates Receives Shaw-Hardy Taylor Achievement Award for Advancing Women’s Philanthropy

Melinda French Gates is the recipient of the Shaw-Hardy Taylor Achievement Award from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute. (Image credit: WPI)

(Thursday, June 3, 2021) Philanthropist Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, today received the Shaw-Hardy Taylor Achievement Award from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

The Shaw-Hardy Taylor Achievement Award recognizes philanthropists, nonprofit leaders, volunteers, change agents, fundraisers and researchers who have moved women’s philanthropy forward and demonstrated significant impact on the field. The award has been presented triennially since 2008, with the exception that conferral of the award to French Gates, which had been slated for last year, was deferred due to the pandemic.

$400K to Make Vaccines Within Reach for Black Women

BWHI has received a grant of $400K from the Rockefeller Foundation to improve access to vaccines for black women and people of color.

The Rockefeller Fdn's Equity-First Vaccination Initiative granted $400K to BWHI to improve access to vaccines for black women and communities of color. (Image credit: Black Women's Health Initiative) — The Rockefeller Fdn’s Equity-First Vaccination Initiative granted $400K to BWHI to improve access to vaccines for black women and communities of color. (Image credit: Black Women’s Health Initiative)

The Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI) announced that it has received a $400,000 grant from The Rockefeller Foundation to improve vaccination rates among Black women and communities of color. The grant is part of The Rockefeller Foundation’s $20 million Equity-First Vaccination Initiative, which supports hyper-local, community-led programs to improve vaccine access and support educational outreach in five cities. Learnings from the initiative will help inform strategies across the country to increase access to Covid-19 vaccinations in communities of color, contributing to a collective, national north star goal of ensuring at least 70 million people of color will be fully vaccinated by July 2021.

Is High Net Worth Divorce Good for Women’s Philanthropy?

The question has to be asked: is high net worth divorce good for women’s philanthropy?

The way I see it as a gender lens publisher, every day that new information comes out about divorced billionaire men and how badly they treated women is a good day for women’s philanthropy. And every time I see a new headline about Bill Gates and his difficulties with women, I get a distinct feeling we might soon see a new wave of women’s rage philanthropy, directed by Melinda Gates and a cadre of other feminist donors who have had enough of the bullshit.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Building at Carnegie Mellon University (Photo by Jonathan Speek on Unsplash)

I saw people online saying they were worried about the Gates children in all of this. But their children are young adults now. In my experience, young adults are often the first to suggest to miserable parents that they consider divorce. You might just imagine one of the Gates children saying one day, “Mom (or Dad): We’re the richest people in the world. Why are you living in miserable confinement in your relationship?”

Bill and Melinda Gates File for Divorce, Agree to Divide Assets

Editor’s Note: The following article is by Eric Johnson and Alexandra Ulmer from Reuters News Service.

Billionaire benefactors Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of one of the world’s largest private charitable foundations, filed for divorce on Monday after 27 years of marriage but pledged to continue their philanthropic work together.

Microsoft technology advisor Bill Gates and his wife Melinda leave on the second day of the Allen and Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo — Bill Gates and his wife Melinda announced their divorce and decision to divide their communal property as set forth in their separation agreement. (Image credit: Reuters)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has become one of the most powerful and influential forces in global public health, spending more than $50 billion over the past two decades to bring a business approach to combating poverty and disease.

Gwen Tillman of Tides on Investing in Women: It’s Simple

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Gwen Tillman, Chief People Officer for Tides, a philanthropic partner and nonprofit accelerator.

What do you wish you had known when you started out in your profession?

By the time I took a sabbatical from working in the technology sector, I was burned out. I didn’t realize how burned out I was until I allowed myself some time to step back and figure out what I wanted my life to be about. As one of the very few Black women in my field, I constantly drove myself to perform at 1000%, and I think that’s true of many Black women who feel the systemic pressure to constantly prove themselves. What I wish I knew early on in my career is that none of us can function at 1000%, when our bodies and our souls are functioning at 50%. We have to be better advocates for our own well-being because nothing is worth risking your health. Find a career that is consistent with your values and an organization that grants you the grace to live a balanced life and feeds your soul, at the same time. I am happy to say, I have found that at Tides.

How Will the Rockefeller Fdn Make Vaccines More Accessible to POC?

The Rockefeller Foundation has launched the Equity-First Vaccination Initiative to improve vaccination rates in communities of color.

The Rockefeller Foundation's Equity-First Vaccination Initiative will collaborate with organizations across the U.S. to improve vaccination rates in communities of color. (Image credit: Rockefeller Foundation) — The Rockefeller Foundation’s Equity-First Vaccination Initiative will collaborate with organizations across the U.S. to improve vaccination rates in communities of color. (Image credit: Rockefeller Foundation)

The Rockefeller Foundation announces the launch of a historic $20 million Equity-First Vaccination Initiative to improve the vaccination rate among communities of color, which have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Representing less than one-third of the 74 million people who are now fully vaccinated in the United States, communities of color are twice as likely to die from Covid-19 and three times as likely to be hospitalized as white Americans. To close this gap, the Foundation will initially collaborate with five organizations to deploy equity-first, hyper-local public health interventions in five U.S. cities: Baltimore, Md.; Chicago, Ill.; Houston, Texas; Newark, N.J.; Oakland, Calif. During the second phase of the Initiative, the Foundation will collaborate with several national organizations to take lessons learned from the five cities and ensure that at least 70 million people of color are vaccinated by July 2021.

How Is Asia Gender Network Pushing for More Pan-Asian Advocacy?

AVPN’s Asia Gender Network becomes the first pan-Asian network dedicated to the funding advancement of women and girls.

According to recent reports from the World Economic Forum, the world at large is still decades away from achieving total gender equality. In Asia, which holds 60% of the world’s population, that number stretches to 70 years — and in East Asia, more than 160. Pair that with the backslides from the pandemic and the resulting “She-cession,” more than 2 billion Asian women are facing a road to gender equality even more difficult than in years past.

Members of the Asia Gender Network celebrate the founding of their organization with AVPN. (Image Credit: AVPN/Asia Gender Network)

To combat this crisis, the Asia Gender Network has become the first pan-Asian network committed to mobilizing financial, human, and intellectual capital toward gender equality.

Ford Foundation Backs New Black Feminist Fund with Seed Money

The Black Feminist Fund just received a generous commitment of $15M from the Ford Foundation to jumpstart this new effort.

On March 25th, the Ford Foundation announced its commitment of $15 million in seed funding to help launch the Black Feminist Fund, a new philanthropic fund developed and led by a core group of Black feminists who sit at the nexus of feminist organizing, advocacy, and philanthropy globally. Ford’s initial investment will be vital to help jumpstart the fund’s work to create a network of support around key issues that impact Black women around the globe.

The Ford Foundation’s $15 million seed investment is from the proceeds of the foundation’s unprecedented social bond launched in 2020 in response to the pandemic. The new funding to the Black Feminist Fund is in addition to Ford’s ongoing support for organizations working to advance racial and gender equality around the world. The foundation’s increased commitment recognizes that Black women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

Category: Large Foundations