[imagesource: Twitter / @melindagates]

We can guess (or bet) that Bill Gates is likely to end up with a new lady soon enough, but what do we think Melinda Gates will get up to?

The most likely scenario is that she will just keep on giving.

She certainly will have the money for it, and based on her philanthropic history, she has the power, too.

After the split with Bill Gates, she will likely be wealthy enough to be in the Forbes top five billionaires with the most expensive divorce settlements.

Although she doesn’t seem keen to take over the massive family mansion in Washington, she will probably continue the philanthropic effort that she and Bill managed together, as well as the many initiatives she created in her own capacity.

Melinda is a bit of a philanthropic role model and her divorce from Bill shouldn’t put an end to all that she has done over the decades.

There are a number of important causes that Melinda has poured her money into. Here’s more about a few of those, via CNN Business.

Empowering women and young girls

Pivotal Ventures, one of Melinda’s passion projects, aims to empower and support women through several women-focused efforts:

“After Bill and I opened our foundation, I started spending time with women around the world and gaining a much deeper understanding of the impact of structural inequality on women’s and girls’ lives,” Melinda Gates wrote in an opinion piece for CNN on International Women’s Day in March 2020.

“The data is unequivocal: No matter where in the world you are born, your life will be harder if you are a girl.”

Pivotal Ventures specifically focuses on getting more women working in key sectors, such as technology and politics.

The girl boss energy is big with this one.

Mental health

Working through Pivotal Ventures, Melinda Gates has been at the forefront of several mental health initiatives, with a focus mostly on young people.

The Upswing Fund for Adolescent Mental Health was launched last year, particularly focusing on the mental health of young people of colour and the young LGBTQ+ community in the US.

Then, Sound It Out was launched in April – a national campaign that promotes mental health for middle schoolers.

Poverty

The aim of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has always been to lift people out of poverty:

Melinda Gates wrote about the intersection of technology and poverty in an opinion piece for CNN Business in October 2018, saying, “The first step is making sure that all people have access to digital technology, and right now billions still don’t.”

She added, “Digital technology won’t help fight poverty if simply acquiring it pushes people into poverty.”

Melinda’s approach to this cause also covers the needs of women, as she believes “broad access to contraceptives” is the “greatest anti-poverty tool we have in the world”.

Vaccines and vaccine access

What would philanthropy be if there wasn’t some focus on the pandemic that’s still raging?

Well, Melinda has been backing wide access to vaccines:

“Everybody needs this vaccine,” she told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in December.

“If we only get it to the high-income countries, this disease is going to bounce around. We’re going to see twice as many deaths. And our recovery of our economies is going to be much slower than if we get the vaccine out to everybody.”

Her focus on women is here too, encouraging policymakers to consider a long-term solution that will ensure women aren’t at risk again should another crisis occur.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also committed more than $1,75 billion to support the global response to COVID-19.

Oh, and the Gates kids?

All three of them are old enough now – Jennifer, 25, Rory, 21, and Phoebe, 18 –  to spend some money, so will they be getting any inheritance?

Bill has mentioned a couple of times that he and Melinda feel that limiting their inheritance is the best way to go, so they are likely to get only a “minuscule portion” of their wealth.

Via New York Post, he made this response to a Reddit user asking him if reports he would leave his kids “only” $10 million were true:

“I definitely think leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favour to them,” Gates said.

We are still not sure if that settles that, though, as separation agreements don’t typically deal with inheritance where children are concerned.

They’ll be fine, though, that’s for sure.

[sources:cnnbusiness&nypost]