Gates Foundation
The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third-wealthiest charitable foundation in the world, holding $77.2 billion in assets as of December 31, 2024. The primary stated goals of the foundation are to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty across the world, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in the United States. Key individuals of the foundation include Warren Buffett, chief executive officer Mark Suzman, and Michael Larson.
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 U.S., behind Warren Buffett. Bill Gates and Melinda French 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.
History
In 1994, the foundation was formed as the William H. Gates Foundation. In May 2002, the foundation purchased stocks in pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Pfizer. On June 15, 2006, Gates announced his plans to transition out of a day-to-day role with Microsoft, effective July 31, 2008, to allow him to devote more time to working with the foundation. The first CEO of the foundation was Patty Stonesifer, who stepped down in 2008.In 2005, Bill Gates and Melinda French 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 the Gateses, the work referenced was that of the Gates Foundation. On May 12, 2008, it was announced that Jeff Raikes would replace Stonesifer as the CEO of the foundation.
The Gates Foundation announced in January 2005 that it would build its headquarters campus on adjacent to the Seattle Center in Downtown Seattle. The foundation purchased the property for $50.4 million from the Seattle city government, which would help build a 1,000-stall public parking garage and assist with cleanup of the land, which had been used as a Metro Transit bus base. The two-building headquarters campus opened in June 2011 at a cost of $500 million and was designed by NBBJ. The design was awarded LEED Platinum status for its environmentally friendly features, including a living roof, a rainwater retention pool, and a rooftop solar array. The campus also features the large-scale fiber sculpture Impatient Optimist by artist Janet Echelman, installed in the public plaza outside the main building.
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-making 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 October 2013, the Gates Foundation announced that it would join the International Aid Transparency Initiative.
In December 2013, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, president of product development for Genentech before its acquisition by Roche Pharmaceuticals, was announced as the next CEO of the Gates Foundation. She replaced Jeff Raikes in May 2014.
In February 2014, 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".
In October 2019, the Gates Foundation partnered with the World Economic Forum to host the tabletop exercise called Event 201 in New York City.
In February 2020, Gates Foundation CEO Desmond-Hellmann was replaced "for health and family reasons" by Mark Suzman.
As early as 2012, there were reports that the Gates Foundation was acting as a fund aggregator for wealthy donors—the name recognition associated with the foundation caused more money to be placed than when under anonymous control. This was particularly useful during the COVID-19 pandemic because the foundation already knew which organizations were working in the field and able to receive funds.
When President Trump threatened to defund the WHO in summer 2020 over concerns that it was too "deferential" to the Chinese Communist Party, because the Gates Foundation constituted at that time the second-ranked contributor to the WHO, concerns were raised in the charity and academic sector that the Gates Foundation might conceivably bias the WHO in the pursuit of its ideology. In the most timely accounting period, the foundation provided 45% of the WHO's NGO funds, or in other words 12% of the total operating expenditure of the WHO.
It was revealed after the fact that the Gates Foundation had contributed US$1.553 billion to the GAVI over the five years. The foundation was the number two ranked contributor. At the Global Vaccine Summit in June 2020, the foundation pledged $1.6 billion for the subsequent five years.
In May 2022, the Gates Foundation announced the commitment of $125 million to aid in ending the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and to aid in preparing for future pandemics. In total since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic the Gates Foundation has committed more than $2 billion to COVID-19 response efforts. In 2015, it co-funded a community known as Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy in partnership with the United Kingdom Aid from the UK government.
In July 2021, the foundation agreed on a back-up plan in the event that its co-chairs could not work together due to their recent divorce. The deal gave Bill and Melinda a two-year trial, after which Melinda could resign from the organization and receive personal resources from her ex-husband for her own charity work. On May 13, 2024, Melinda Gates resigned as co-chair of the foundation, to be effective June 7, 2024. The foundation was renamed to the Gates Foundation in January 2025, with Bill Gates as the sole chairman.
The New York Times wrote in August 2025 that the Gates Foundation had "quietly ceased backing" a network of organizations associated with Arabella Advisors which is a for-profit consulting company that serves as the hub of a politically liberal "dark money" network. The foundation specifically said that it would cease "making grants to nonprofit funds administered by the consulting firm Arabella Advisors". According to the report, the Gates Foundation had been a very significant donor to Arabella-allied the New Venture Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Over a sixteen-year period, the Gates Foundation had disbursed or pledged about $450 million to Arabella Advisors-associated organizations.
Warren Buffett donations
In June 2006, Warren Buffett pledged to give the foundation approximately 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares spread over multiple years through annual contributions, with the first year's donation of 500,000 shares being worth approximately $1.5 billion. 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% of the shares in July 2006 and was to receive 5% of the remaining earmarked shares in July of each following year.In July 2018, Buffett announced another donation of his company's Class B stock, this time worth $2 billion, to the Gates Foundation.
In June 2024, Buffett clarified the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would not receive any more money after he died. While this does not prevent him from making any further donations while he is still alive, the recipients of his fortune upon his death will be decided unanimously by his three children.
Lifespan
In October 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was split into two entities: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which manages the endowment assets and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which "... conducts all operations and grantmaking work, and it is the entity from which all grants are made". Also announced was the decision to spend all of the foundation's resources within 50 years after Bill's and Melinda's deaths. This was later lowered to within 20 years of their deaths. This would close the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and effectively end the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In the 2006 announcement, it was reiterated that Warren Buffett "... has stipulated that the proceeds from the Berkshire Hathaway shares he still owns at death are to be used for philanthropic purposes within 10 years after his estate has been settled".In May 2025, Bill Gates announced that the foundation will cease operations on December 31, 2045.
The plan to close the Foundation Trust is in contrast to most large charitable foundations that have no set closure date. This is intended to lower administrative costs over the years of the Foundation Trust's life and ensure that the Foundation Trust does not fall into a situation where the vast majority of its expenditures are on administrative costs, including salaries, with only token amounts contributed to charitable causes.