Social impact organisation, Pivotal, founded by Melinda French Gates, has launched an US$250m global open call to fund entities working to improve women’s mental and physical health. Action for Women’s Health is a key component of the $1bn French Gates announced in May to advance women’s power globally. Each awardee will receive flexible funding of between $1 and $5m.
To be eliglible, organisations must serve women and have a record of improving women’s mental or physical health. They should center equity in their approach and be poised to scale their work to strengthen the health of more women.
Women around the world experience inequities across all aspects of their health—from spending more years in poor health to facing barriers to access services and treatments
These inequities can negatively impact women’s daily lives as well as their economic prospects and prosperity, their ability to engage in their communities, and their opportunities to achieve their goals.
“More than a billion women and girls suffer from malnutrition. Reproductive health care is being denied in the U.S. and other countries. And globally, a woman dies in childbirth every two minutes,” said French Gates.
“This is unacceptable, but there is reason for hope. Organizations around the world are taking innovative approaches to addressing these challenges, and this open call is about getting them the resources they need to scale up and reach as many people as possible.”
Action for Women’s Health is being managed by Lever for Change, a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that connects funders with bold solutions to the world’s biggest problems—including issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity, and climate change.
Cecilia Conrad, CEO of Lever for Change, said: “With this open call, we hope to reach even more outstanding organizations in communities that have not had access to this kind of funding. Action for Women’s Health will lift up community-informed groups around the world with deep lived experience of the issues they work on.”
Organisations from around the world – including the Middle East and GCC – are invited to apply to the initiative. The idea is to channel support to groups who have historically struggled to get funding. The registration deadline is December 3, 2024.
Potential applicants should visit womenshealth.leverforchange.org for more information and to take the Organisational Readiness Tool assessment to determine their eligibility.
