Bill Gates & Melinda Charity Work.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), previously the William H. Gates Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the largest private foundation in the world, holding $46.8 billion in assets. The primary goals of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and, in the U.S., to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation is controlled by its three trustees: Bill and Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett. Other principal officers include Co-Chair William H. Gates, Sr. and Chief Executive Officer Mark Suzman.
It had an endowment of $46.8 billion as of December 31, 2018. The scale of the foundation and the way it seeks to apply business techniques to giving makes it one of the leaders in venture philanthropy, though the foundation itself notes that the philanthropic role has limitations. In 2007, its founders were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in the US, and Warren Buffett the first. As of 2018, Bill and Melinda Gates had donated around $36 billion to the foundation. Since its founding, the foundation has endowed and supported a broad range of social, health, and education developments including the establishment of the Gates Cambridge Scholarships at Cambridge University.
In 1994, the foundation was formed as the William H. Gates Foundation. During the foundation’s following years, funding grew to $2 billion. On June 15, 2006, Gates announced his plans to transition out of a day-to-day role with Microsoft, effective July 31, 2008,[12] to allow him to devote more time to working with the foundation. The first CEO of the foundation, until she stepped down in 2008, was Patty Stonesifer.
.In 2005, Bill and Melinda Gates, along with the Irish rock musician Bono, were named by Time as Persons of the Year 2005 for their outstanding charitable work. In the case of Bill and Melinda Gates, the work referenced was that of this foundation.
In April 2010, Gates was invited to visit and speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he asked the students to take on the hard problems of the world in their futures. He also explained the nature and philosophy of his philanthropic endeavors.
In 2010, the foundation’s founders started the Commission on Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century, entitled “Transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world.
A 2011 survey of grantees found that many believed the foundation did not make its goals and strategies clear and sometimes did not understand those of the grantees; that the foundation’s decision- and grantmaking procedures were too opaque; and that its communications could be more consistent and responsive. The foundation’s response was to improve the clarity of its explanations, make “orientation calls” to grantees upon awarding grants, tell grantees who their foundation contact is, give timely feedback when they receive a grantee report, and establish a way for grantees to provide anonymous or attributed feedback to the foundation. The foundation also launched a podcast series.
In 2013, Hillary Clinton launched a partnership between the foundation and the Clinton Foundation to gather and study data on the progress of women and girls around the world since the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference On Women in Beijing. This is called “No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project.”
Warren Buffett donation
On June 25, 2006, Warren Buffett (then the world’s richest person, estimated worth of $62 billion as of April 16, 2008) pledged to give the foundation approximately 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares (then valued at $3,071 each, before a 50–1 stock split in 2010) spread over multiple years through annual contributions, with the first year’s donation of 500,000 shares being worth approximately $1.5 bill Buffett set conditions so that these contributions do not simply increase the foundation’s endowment, but effectively work as a matching contribution, doubling the foundation’s annual giving. Bloomberg News noted, “Buffett’s gift came with three conditions for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active in its administration; it must continue to qualify as a charity; and each year it must give away an amount equal to the previous year’s Berkshire gift, plus an additional amount equal to 5 percent of net assets. Buffett gave the foundation two years to abide by the third requirement.” The Gates Foundation received 5% (500,000) of the shares in July 2006 and will receive 5% of the remaining earmarked shares in the July of each following year (475,000 in 2007, 451,250 in 2008). In July 2018, Buffet announced another donation of his company’s Class B stock, this time worth $2 billion, to the Gates Foundation