Melinda French Gates' Action for Women's Health Challenge

Melinda French Gates' Action for Women's Health Challenge is sponsored by Melinda French Gates' Pivotal Ventures. Awards grants to organizations providing health care for women globally, including Egypt.

Action for Women's Health - Lever for Change Action for Women’s Health In 2024, Pivotal, a group of organizations founded by Melinda French Gates, launched Action for Women’s Health, a $250 million global open call to support organizations working to improve women’s mental and physical health around the world. On November 12, 2025, 80+ awardee organizations were announced.

On November 12, 2025, Pivotal and Lever for Change announced 80+ organizations that were awarded between $1 million and $5 million in funding through Action for Women’s Health, a $250 million global open call to support organizations working to improve women’s mental and physical health around the world.

This diverse group of awardees is working across the world to advance health solutions for women of all backgrounds at all stages of life. The majority of the awardees (over 65 percent) are community-based organizations working within their home countries across regions, including West Africa, Central America, and Melanesia.

In partnership with Devex, Pivotal has launched a microsite celebrating the solutions reshaping women’s health and well-being that includes Action for Women’s Health awardees. See more here ! Each of the awardee organizations takes a unique approach to their work, shaped by local context, community needs, and lived experience.

From bringing reproductive health services to rural communities to ensuring women have access to culturally relevant mental health care, the awardees are delivering innovative, scalable, and equitable solutions to the women who depend on them. Their focus areas also include maternal and perinatal health, furthering public health and education, and ensuring communities’ access to quality health care.

Yet, despite the importance of their work, many of the awardees announced today have historically lacked access to major funding streams. Explore the awardee organizations Although women make up half of the world’s population, they face inequities in nearly every aspect of their health.

Women’s health is chronically underfunded and under-researched, and even when resources and solutions do exist, they often aren’t reaching the women who need them. Melinda French Gates created Action for Women’s Health as part of the $1 billion commitment she made in 2024 to advance women’s power around the world.

This global open call is funded by Pivotal, a group of impact organizations founded by Melinda French Gates, and managed by Lever for Change. Over 4,000 organizations from 119 countries applied to the open call. Applications underwent a multi-stage review, including administrative screening, a participatory review process, and an external Evaluation Panel composed of experts across the health, gender, and philanthropic fields.

During the participatory review period, each applicant reviewed four peer applications using a scoring rubric to determine if the proposals were impactful, scalable, equitable, and feasible in their approaches. Top-scoring proposals advanced to the Evaluation Panel , where projects received additional review and comments using the same rubric from expert panelists which included leaders in philanthropy, research and women’s health.

Following an additional round of due diligence, Pivotal and Lever for Change identified the final awardees from among the top-scoring organizations. Grants to these organizations have been made through a donor-advised fund supported by Pivotal at National Philanthropic Trust (NPT).

All 80+ awardee organizations will be added to our global network , which offers ongoing learning and networking opportunities to expand the impact of their work, raise their visibility, and increase their potential to secure funding. If you are interested in learning more or providing support to any of the awardee organizations, please contact us .

Non-governmental Organization/Nonprofit Non-governmental Organization/Nonprofit North Carolina A&T State University Maternal and perinatal health Founded by Melinda French Gates in 2015, Pivotal works to advance social progress and expand women’s power and influence in the U.S. and around the… Awardee Organizations Announced