MacKenzie Scott, former wife of billionaire Jeff Bezos, and Melinda Gates, who announced her separation with her husband Bill Gates earlier this year, have joined forces to donate a vast sum of money to projects that promote gender equality in tech, higher education, caregiving and minority communities.
According to AP, some $40 million was awarded via an initiative from Gates, MacKenzie and the family foundation of billionaire Lynn Schusterman to four projects that became the winners of The Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, “a funding competition launched in June 2020 with the goal of expanding women’s power and influence in the United States.”
The projects to receive the funding include "Building Women’s Equality through Strengthening the Care Infrastructure, a project by a coalition of organizations working on the societal perceptions of caregiving; Changing the Face of Tech, an initiative to offer women more opportunities in the tech sector; Girls Inc.’s Project Accelerate, which aims to help young women through college and career entry; and The Future is Indigenous Womxn, an initiative to support businesses owned by Native American women."
"The overwhelming response to the challenge proves there’s no shortage of transformational ideas about how to accelerate progress for women and girls,” Gates said in a statement. "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."
Scott also said that "the awardees are strong teams working on the front lines and from within communities to help women build power in their lives and careers.”
"And best of all, they’re not alone," she added.
Also, an additional $8 million in funding is going to be split between two finalists, “one project working to combat physical, sexual and other forms of violence inflicted by romantic partners and another aiming to help young women become more politically active,” the media outlet adds.