Five causes supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The Gates transferred over $50 billion of their Microsoft stock to the foundation in its early days. Picture: Jedd Christensen/ Getty Images.
Bill and Melinda Gates have been featured in headlines all over the world since announcing their plans to divorce - many of which have focused on the wealth amassed by the couple since Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975.
The Seattle native is one of the world’s richest people, with a net worth estimated at around $130bn. However, it’s believed that much of the couple’s wealth is tied up in their namesake charity organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The couple founded the global non-profit, now the world’s largest private charitable foundation, in 2000 after reading an article about children dying from diseases, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia, in poorer countries.
Since then, they have spent the past 21 years donating billions of dollars to philanthropic causes. Bill Gates even stepped down from Microsoft in 2008 to focus on the organisation full time.
While the news of the billionaires’ split reverberates, many are questioning what exactly will happen to the foundation and its estimated $50bn in assets.
Since the announcement on Monday, however, the Gates have pledged to continue to work together on the foundation and its causes. Here are some of the areas the organisation has focused on over the years.
Over the past two decades, the Gates have become two of the most powerful private players in global health.
As one of the World Health Organisation’s biggest donors, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed billions of dollars to the world’s vaccination efforts since first getting involved with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization in 1999.
Their donations were particularly helpful in helping to distribute polio and rotavirus vaccines in the developing world.
Most recently, their efforts have focused on Covax, the global innovation to get Covid-19 vaccines to more than 90 countries. So far, the foundation has given out grants worth $1.75bn to help Covid-19 vaccine initiatives and research.
The foundation also dedicates an extensive amount of resources to help accelerate the decline of HIV infections. To date, it has committed more than $3bn in grants to AIDS and HIV organisations around the world, mainly focusing efforts in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2001, the foundation also committed $100m to the United Nations Global Fund for AIDS and Health.
From carrying a jar of stool on stage to being photographed drinking water made from human waste, Bill Gates has done everything in his power to showcase new technologies that can improve sanitation around the world.
The foundation has spent a decade working with engineers to design low-cost toilets for developing nations and funding projects to improve drinking water.
In 2019, Melinda Gates pledged to donate $1bn dollars to the promotion of gender equality in the US. In an article for Time magazine, she wrote about how the issue of women’s rights “keeps [her] up at night”.
“I want to see more women in the position to make decisions, control resources, and shape policies and perspectives. I believe that women’s potential is worth investing in — and the people and organizations working to improve women’s lives are too,” she wrote.
Through the foundation, the Gates have also helped to create a team that works around the world to close the gender gap, focusing particularly on reaching low-income women.
The environment is one of Bill Gates’ foremost interests, with the mogul recently writing a book titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.
In 2015, he founded an umbrella organisation that aims to accelerate innovation in sustainable energy called Breakthrough Energy and he also created TerraPower, a carbon-free nuclear energy company. He also backed Impossible Foods, the meat substitution developer, when the company first came about.
Employees often write about preventing climate change on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website, highlighting the effects on Africa farmers and asking governments to step in.
“I can’t deny being a rich guy with an opinion. I do believe, though, that it is an informed opinion, and I am always trying to learn more,” Bill Gates writes in the new book.
