--- description: Find out who else is on the TIME100 Most Influential People in Philanthropy 2026 list. title: TIME100 Philanthropy: Alice Kang’ethe image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd64c8adf77138aca/69fe40f870153b26044e7c69/t100-philanthropy-Alice-Kangethe.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y18.27 --- May 14, 2026 # Alice Kang’ethe Prioritizing maternal health by [Natalie Donback](/author/natalie-donback/) ## Natalie Donback Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Courtesy Beginnings Fund From 2000 to 2023, maternal deaths worldwide fell by an astonishing [40%](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality "undefined"), with U.S. health programs playing a major role in those hard-won gains. But with the Trump Administration’s foreign aid rollbacks, including cutting [88%](https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/YearofHarms%5FReport.pdf "undefined") of U.S. funding for maternal health, [millions of women](https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/YearofHarms%5FReport.pdf "undefined") are once again at risk of dying from preventable causes such as severe bleeding and infections. Just as the federal cuts were unfolding, Alice Kang’ethe was supporting a group of donors—including the Gates Foundation, [Children's Investment Fund Foundation](https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/christopher-hohn/ "undefined"), Delta Philanthropies, the Elma Philanthropies, and the Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity—to create a new fund aimed at saving maternal and newborn lives by targeting what she calls the “core drivers of death.” In April 2025, the Beginnings Fund was born. Every day in 2023, [700 women](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality "undefined") died from childbirth; [70%](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality "undefined") of those deaths happened in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Health Organization. The Beginnings Fund is looking to improve focus in maternal aid by co-designing targeted interventions alongside governments in priority nations. In Malawi, for example, they realized investments had to address the high mortality rate for mothers who give birth by C-section—accounting for more than half of maternal deaths. To date, the fund has raised $493 million and approved 30 grants totaling $199 million across six countries: Malawi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. The fund also works to address [workforce shortages](https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2025/march/20250312%5Fsitrep#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20weekly%20update%20from%20March,This%20includes:%20%2A%20Many%20US%2Dfunded%20drop%2Din%20centers "undefined") and to scale new innovations such as point-of-care ultrasound machines. “We want this to not just be a project, but an investment that truly changes the trajectory of maternal and newborn health on the continent.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/alice-kangethe/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/alice-kangethe/"},"headline":"Alice Kang’ethe","datePublished":"2026-05-14T12:02:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-22T03:47:53.580Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/alice-kangethe/","keywords":["list","franchise","Accolades","Magazine","Philanthropy 2026"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd64c8adf77138aca/69fe40f870153b26044e7c69/t100-philanthropy-Alice-Kangethe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y18.27&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Natalie Donback","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/natalie-donback/"}],"creator":"Natalie Donback","articleSection":"TIME100","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd64c8adf77138aca/69fe40f870153b26044e7c69/t100-philanthropy-Alice-Kangethe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y18.27&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/time100/","name":"TIME100"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/alice-kangethe/","name":"Alice Kang’ethe"}}]}] ```