Melinda French Gates Commits $150 Million to Help Women Thrive at Work

This $150 million workplace commitment is part of French Gates’s work to advance women’s power and influence. Since 2019, she has committed $2 billion through her organizations, Pivotal Ventures and Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, to position more women of all backgrounds to make decisions, control resources and shape policies.

The funds will be directed to three focus areas. $75 million will go to backing evidence-based initiatives designed to build healthier workplaces. $30 million will go to supporting workplace protections, reforms, and programs that better meet the needs of working women. $45 million will go to addressing persistent gender gaps in tech, specifically AI, by partnering with organizations working to help shape its future.

"Women's representation in the workforce has increased substantially over the last few years. However, there are significant barriers holding women back from truly thriving at work: a lack of caregiving support, outdated and inflexible policies and practices, and ongoing discrimination, harassment, and even abuse. Unless we remove these barriers, we will never achieve true gender equality in this country, and we risk losing the precious progress we've already made. That's why I'm committing $150 million to make the workplace more equal. I want to help create a workplace that actually works for everyone." - Melinda French Gates, Philanthropist and Founder, Pivotal.

In the spring of 2024, Pivotal conducted a Women’s Power and Influence National Survey to understand if, and how, women’s equality has progressed over the past five years, with particular emphasis on where progress is stalling and barriers remain. 5,000 people in the United States participated in the survey, including 4,000 women and non-binary people and 1,000 men. The results revealed five significant barriers that women still experience at work.

• Barrier #1, Caregiving. The availability of caregiving support is the dominant factor in how far women can rise in the workplace. Since 2019, the number of women who report the lack of caregiving support as a factor that holds them back professionally has increased from 10% to 26%.
• Barrier #2, Competing Priorities. Women under the age of 24 are more likely to prioritize their careers than men, but then things shift. For the 25-34 age group, the reverse is true, with women focusing on other priorities, including family. This shift occurs at a critical time when women could be advancing in their careers.
• Barrier #3, Inflexible Workplaces. Many high-paying roles require exceptionally long, inflexible hours, making it difficult to balance career and other priorities. As a result, 13% of men surveyed aspire to influential C-suite or top leadership positions, compared to just 8% of women. As workers get older, this gap widens.
• Barrier #4, Violence and Harassment. Violence and harassment are especially targeted at those from vulnerable populations. Women who make less than $25,000 a year are four times as likely to name violence as a career barrier than those who earn over $200,000.
• Barrier #5, Biased Attitudes. Despite the progress that women have made, biases against women in power persists. More than a quarter of men believe that men are better suited to be senior business leaders than women. Similarly, 23% of men say that men are better suited to make hard decisions as political leaders.

"Women have made large gains in women's power and influence in the workplace; however, our research shows that women are more likely to face barriers and make tough trade-offs when advancing in their careers. We are thrilled to provide the necessary funding to support organizations who are helping to remove those barriers so that women can thrive at work." - Dr. Renee Wittemyer, Vice President of Program Strategy, Pivotal Ventures.

To see progress in the next decade, it is imperative that more business decision-makers and policymakers advocate for change and help remove workplace barriers. Pivotal will continue to leverage philanthropic dollars to advance this issue in 2025 and beyond.

More information on Pivotal’s $150 million commitment to women in the workplace can be found at: Melinda French Gates Commits $150 Million to Help Women Thrive at Work

More information on Melinda’s second $1 billion commitment to accelerating women’s power and influence can be found here: Melinda French Gates Announces $1B Commitment to Advance Women's Power Globally

A deep dive into the findings and methodology of the Pivotal Women’s Power and Influence National Survey, 2024 can be found here.