adminFriday marks the last day of Melinda French Gates’ more than two-decade run as the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation she ran with her ex-husband.
“I’m holding a complicated mix of emotions today,” she wrote in a letter to staff posted on her X account. “I’m sad to be saying goodbye, proud of all we accomplished, energized by what’s ahead, and excited to see what you do next. But the emotion I feel most strongly right now is gratitude.”
She has helped lead the foundation since 2000, with the organization making nearly $78 billion worth of grant payments in the nearly 25 years since its founding.
French Gates told employees the “impact you and our partners are having in the world could not be more important,” listing off the accomplishments including kids having healthier lives, more women with personal bank accounts, and more “farmers coaxing lifechanging surpluses out of small family plots.”
“Sometimes, depending on where we sit in the organization, that impact can feel far away from our day-to-day activities,” she wrote. “But after twenty-five years of traveling on behalf of this foundation to see our partners in action, I can assure you that it is real — and it’s in no small part because of you.”
French Gates’ exit had been telegraphed for several years. Bill Gates and French Gates announced their divorce in May 2021. They said at the time they would allow themselves a kind of trial period through 2023 to determine if they could continue working with one another to oversee their massive charitable foundation. Last month, she announced her exit.
As part of her separation agreement from former husband Bill, French Gates said she will receive an additional $12.5 billion for her charitable work.
She explained that her departure from the foundation stemmed from her reaction to the US Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision that let individual states decide abortion rights. The philanthropist felt compelled to offer Americans financial support for their reproductive freedoms — support that she says she had been giving exclusively overseas.
“While I have long focused on improving contraceptive access overseas, in the post-Dobbs era, I now feel compelled to support reproductive rights here at home,” French Gates said in an op-ed in late May in the New York Times.
French Gates said she will donate $1 billion through 2026 to advance women’s rights around the world through her organization, Pivotal Ventures. That will include $200 million in grants to organizations that are fighting for women’s reproductive rights.
“Although a chapter ends for me today, this isn’t goodbye,” she wrote Friday. “I’ll still be working on the things we all care about and still doing my part to fight for a healthier, more prosperous, more equal future for everyone.”
–CNN’s David Goldman contributed to this report.
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