“No couple support needed”: how multimillion-dollar women are reforming philanthropy

“No partner support required”. The five lit words Melinda Gates’ divorce Last week’s petition meant a different euphemism for a woman with billions of dollars in her own name and a claim for Bill Gates ’fortune, with $ 130 billion.

They could also serve as a motto for a growing group of women whose independent donation transforms American philanthropy.

Details of Gates’ separation agreement remain private, although within days of Bill’s holding divorce petition stock transferred is worth more than $ 2 billion to Melinda.

While the couple will continue to run the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation together, she manages less than half of Bill’s fortune, raising the prospect of new wealth transfers, making Melinda a greater philanthropic force in her own right.

There are no templates for the new class of female megadonors, among which already appears larger. There are some divorces of which they were titular (especially MacKenzie Scott $ 38 billion deal with Jeff Bezos) and other full-time widows, such as Laurene Powell Jobs, Julia Koch and Sheryl Sandberg.

Priscilla Chan, the wife of Mark Zuckerberg, is among those who have shared the same turnover with their spouses from their first foray to high-octane donation. And there are a growing number, whose wealth comes from their own entrepreneurship rather than a husband or ancestor.

Together, they distance female philanthropy from their associations with pearl-clad socialites and gala dinners, announcing demographic and strategic changes to which charities are struggling to respond.

The growth of given women partly reflects the growth of their wealth. Women control a third of the world’s assets, by BCG estimates, and accumulate more at an accelerated rate. But those working in the field say the best-known benefactors inspire others to follow suit.

Scott destroyed donor lists last year by giving away $ 5.7 billion, just her second husband. More surprising even than the sums involved was how she spent them, says Andrea Pactor, former head of the University of Indiana’s Women’s Philanthropy Institute.

“[It] it was so public that I think it’s a key point and it will alter the way women, and hopefully men, think about their donation, ”she says.

In just four months, Scott’s team scanned data on 6,500 organizations, interviewing hundreds before selecting them. 384 recipients working in everything from food banks to education.

“McKenzie Scott’s strategies impact philanthropy, forcing institutions that give a lot of grants to projects to step back and ask themselves‘ how do we do that? “says Jacob Harold, Candid ‘s executive vice president, who studies foundations and non – profit organizations.

What he stressed, he said, was that his approach “was deeply based on trust,” which involved less of the intrusive due diligence that many foundations insist on, and it was unsolicited grants and no restrictions on institutions. relatively low benefits, not to elite institutions.

The focus on Scott and Gates has a “wavy effect” on other women, Pactor says. But it would be wrong to draw too close a parallel between them, warns Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effect Philanthropy. Gates has been the practical co-chair of the Gates Foundation for two decades, while Scott (as Bezos) is new to the major donor lists.

Still, as these women make these lists more diverse, Buchanan says, she hopes we will see “less top-down thinking, which knows the best business, which sometimes puts big donors in trouble.”

Pactor institute research suggests that men and women have different philanthropic styles and different motivations to give.

Dana Brakman Reiser, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, says generational factors may play a bigger role than gender. Gates is only 56, a year younger than Jobs. Scott and Sandberg are 51 years old and Chan is only 36 years old.

“Philanthropy seems to go from something you do retiring to something you do as you build your empire, as you grow your family,” he points out.

The youngest donors are more interested by combining philanthropy with impact investment and are more likely to use limited liability companies and donor-advised funds, which are more flexible and private than foundations.

Brakman Reiser says younger donors, such as Jobs and Chan, who pioneered the use of LLCs, are announcing “a calculation with the tools of philanthropy.”

When the University of California, Los Angeles, started a women’s program in philanthropy 25 years ago, donors were supposed to have a supporting role.

“They had the feeling,‘ I’m the one who makes the donations – it’s my check, my husband’s name doesn’t even appear on it and [yet] the thank you note. . . come back to him, ”recalls Melissa Effron Hayek, who runs the show.

But the campus has since seen one pronounced change to women who donate in their own right and a less “transactional” quality to their donations, Effron Hayek says, “Women donate for different reasons. You don’t have to have your name on the building … They want to commit and feel l ‘impact of their donation’.

Kathleen Loehr, who advises charities to attract women donors, highlights Scott’s desire for impact, her rigorous research, and her focus on values ​​as emblematic of the difference between women.

Many women donors consider the word “philanthropist” to be paternalistic and disagree with their desire to relate to the groups they support, according to her. They also give more to the causes that many men overlook, such as combating income inequality and advancing in other women and girls.

In this, Gates is also a model. Everything she does afterwards, without the support of a spouse, has already inspired her donor women, Effron Hayek says, “Melinda Gates is our spiritual animal.”