Jennifer and Phoebe Gates Celebrate Mom Melinda’s 60th Birthday: ‘You Inspire Me Forever’…See More

Melinda French Gates is getting all the love for her milestone birthday!

On Thursday, Aug. 15, as French Gates celebrated turning 60, she received a pair of loving tributes from daughters Jennifer, 28, and Phoebe, 21.

“Mom, you taught me first and most about love,” Phoebe, who recently graduated from Stanford University, wrote in her birthday message. “You inspire me forever, and always, and now the whole world. Happiest birthday to you. 💕.”

She also shared a trio of photos of her and her mother from over the years, including one that dated back to when Phoebe was a young girl.

In a separate birthday message, Jennifer — a soon-to-be mom of 2 — thanked her mother for inspiring her to live her best life.

“Thank you for loving me unconditionally all these years,” she said. “For modeling for me what motherhood and a career can look like and for reminding me that joy isn’t always in having the answers but in enjoying the moments and seeing where life takes you.”

Back in June, French Gates spoke with Time about how she felt about the milestone birthday.

“I feel like, ‘Wow, I’m 60. I better surround myself with people and still travel [so that] I’m still absolutely learning, because the world is moving, the world is changing,’ ” she said. “I’m totally unencumbered to work in any way I want.”

Leading up her 60th birthday, French Gates launched a YouTube series called Moments That Make Us, where she sat down to ask several women she admires, including Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King and Billie Jean King, “about their biggest life transitions.”

During her conversation with Winfrey, 70, and King, 69, she revealed, “I wouldn’t have gotten through my divorce if it wasn’t for my three closest friends.” Adding, “I couldn’t do that for my soul, and for so many other women that I’ve met who are in painful situations and can’t get out, who aren’t sure they should get out.”

Since her divorce from Bill Gates, French Gates has stepped away from the Gates Foundation and pledged to donate $1 billion to support women’s rights in the United States. She announced she was leaving the foundation she co-founded more than two decades ago in May, and her last day at the organization was on June 7.

“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” she said. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.”

Days before she left the foundation, she revealed she will spend the money on “people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States,” over the next two years.

At the time, PEOPLE confirmed French Gates had delivered funding to various groups that work to protect and strengthen women’s rights, including the National Women’s Law Center, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Additionally, a portion of the $1 billion commitment will also be awarded through an “open call,” which will launch in the fall.