Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's largest charitable foundation, endowed by Bill Gates, chairman and founder of Microsoft, and his wife, Melinda Gates. It was created in January 2000 through the merger of the Gates Learning Foundation and the William H. Gates Foundation. The foundation is based in Seattle, Washington and is led by William H. Gates, Sr. (Bill Gates' father) and Patty Stonesifer.

The foundation's grants have provided funds for underrepresented minority college scholarships, AIDS prevention, diseases that strike mainly in the Third World, and other causes. The Foundation currently provides 90% of the world budget for the attempted eradication of poliomyelitis (polio), the World Health Organization having "moved on" to other diseases. In June 1999, Gates and his wife donated US$5 billion to their foundation. They have donated more than US$100 million to help children suffering from AIDS. On January 26, 2005, it was announced that the Foundation had made a further contribution of US$750 million to the international Vaccine Fund to help fight diseases such as diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, poliomyelitis and yellow fever. As of 2005, the foundation has an endowment of approximately US$28 billion. To maintain its status as a charitable foundation, it must donate at least 5 percent of its assets each year. Thus the donations from the foundation each year would at least amount to over $1 billion.

Bill and Melinda Gates, along with the singer Bono, were named by TIME as Persons of the Year 2005 for their charitable work. In the case of Bill and Melinda Gates, the work in question was that of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Donations

The foundation primarily focuses on the following areas:

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization

The foundation gave The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization a donation of US$750 million on 25 January, 2005.

Official site: VaccineAlliance.org, Donation press release

The Institute for OneWorld Health

The foundation gave The Institute for OneWorld Health a donation of nearly US$10m to support the organization's work on a drug for visceral leishmaniasis (VL).

Indian Ocean Earthquake

The foundation made total grant donations of US $3 million to various charities to help with the aid effort for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake. These charities include:

Children's Vaccine Program

The Children's Vaccine Program, run by the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), received a donation of US$27 million to help vaccinate Japanese encephalitis on 9 December, 2003.

Official site: ChildrensVaccine.org, Donation press release

Gates Millennium Scholars

Administered by the United Negro College Fund the foundation donated $1 billion US for minority student scholarships.

Official site: www.gmsp.org

Access to Learning Award

Each year an award of up to US$1 million is given to a public library or similar organization outside the United States that has an innovative program offering the public free access to information technology.

Official site: Part of CLIR.org

Gates Cambridge Scholarships

Donated US$210 million In October 2000 to help people outside of the United Kingdom study at the University of Cambridge. Approximately 100 students every year are funded.

Official website

University Scholars Program

Donated $20 million in 1998 to endow a scholarship program at Melinda Gates' alma mater, Duke University. The program provides full-ride scholarships to about 10 members of each undergraduate class, and one member in each class in each of the professional schools (Schools of Medicine, Business, Law, Divinity, Environment, and Nursing). The program also pays for a full-time administrator who organizes seminars to bring these scholars together for interdisciplinary discussions as well as the selection process in the Spring.

Computer History

Donated $15 million to the Computer History Museum in October, 2005. [1]

Rice Research

Donated US$800,000 to the Philippine Rice Research Institute to develop rice with higher amounts of micronutrients. [2]

Discovery Institute

Donated $1 million in 2000 to the Discovery Institute and pledged $9.35 million over 10 years in 2003, including $50,000 of Bruce Chapman's $141,000 annual salary. The money of grant is "exclusive to the Cascadia project" on regional transportation, according to a Gates Foundation grant maker, and not to the Institute's other activities, including promotion of intelligent design.

External links