Bloomberg — Melinda French Gates will increasingly give away her fortune through philanthropies other than the $50 billion Gates Foundation.
French Gates, 57, intends to spread her wealth across philanthropic endeavors, rather than pledging to give the bulk of it to the Gates Foundation, Dow Jones reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
She and Bill Gates, 66, described their individual plans for giving away their fortunes in letters posted online in November, almost seven months after announcing their divorce. French Gates has been building up her own philanthropic investment firm Pivotal Ventures, which was started in 2015 with a focus on implementing “innovative solutions to problems affecting U.S. women and families.”
She is worth $11.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Gates has the world’s fourth-highest net worth, at $130 billion.
Messages to Pivotal Ventures and Gates Foundation representatives weren’t immediately returned.
The pair initially wrote a letter as a couple in 2010 for the Giving Pledge, a promise to give away the majority of their money in their lifetime or their wills.
“As part of this pledge, I commit to doing more than writing checks,” French Gates wrote in her updated letter in November. “I also commit my time, energy and efforts to the work of fighting poverty and advancing equality -- for women and girls and other marginalized groups -- in the United States and around the world. My giving will continue to focus on the people for whom the barriers to equality are highest.”
Last week, Gates and French Gates shook up control of their Seattle-based foundation, adding four new members to its board of trustees and adding that there could be as many as nine members in the future. Talks are “ongoing about adding to the initial slate to enhance representation across gender, geography and expertise.”
If the ex-couple can’t work together, French Gates will step down from the foundation within two years, they agreed last year. If she departs, French Gates will receive money from Gates for her philanthropic work apart from the foundation’s endowment.
Gates has already transferred billions of dollars of stock in companies to French Gates in the months after their split was announced.
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