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Bill Gates: billionaire philanthropist

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  • Bill Gates: billionaire philanthropist

    The decision by Microsoft to return $75bn (£40.5bn) in cash will come as welcome news to more than the software giant's shareholders.

    Bill Gates, Microsoft's billionaire co-founder and the company's biggest shareholder, has said he intends to give his estimated $3bn share of the payout to his charitable trust, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    The donation is just the latest in a line of offerings from Mr Gates, who in recent years has marked himself out as not only the world's richest man, but one of its biggest philanthropists.

    The Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a $27bn endowment, and in the last decade has pledged more than $7bn to good causes.

    Set up in 2000 by Mr Gates and his wife Melinda from the merger of two family charitable trusts, the foundation is dedicated to promoting greater equality in global health and learning.

    'Unconscionable disparity'

    Together with the British-based Wellcome Trust, which holds assets worth around £9bn, the foundation leads the world in charitable giving.

    Run by Mr Gates' father, William H Gates Sr, the foundation lists one of its primary goals as "reducing the 'unconscionable disparity' that exists between the way that we live and the way that the people of the developing world live".

    Mr Gates' money could help improve the health of millions

    In February, the foundation pledged $83m to help fight tuberculosis, a disease which the World Health Organisation says kills nearly 2 million people a year.

    Last year it donated $168m to fund research into malaria and made $60m available to fund research into how the risk of HIV infection among women in developing countries can be reduced.

    Backed by Mr Gates' vast wealth - amassed by building Microsoft into the world's biggest software company - the foundation's operations are driven by the concept of a more businesslike and hands-on approach to philanthropy.

    Making an impact

    Unlike the Wellcome Trust, a research-funding charity which was established in 1936 following the death of Sir Henry Wellcome, the foundation's set-up enables its benefactor to oversee how his money is being spent.

    At last year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Gates told world leaders that he had a duty to ensure his wealth "goes back to global society in the most impactful way".


    The Gates' Foundation
    Endowment of $27bn.
    $7.1bn in grants since 1994.
    Largest grant: $1bn to the United Negro College Fund.
    Average grant: $903,711.
    Supports work in more than 100 countries.


    Since his involvement with the foundation, Mr Gates has become something of a "walking encyclopaedia of medical knowledge", according to Warren E Buffett, the chief executive of financial services firm Berkshire Hathaway.

    "I have heard him speak many times on this subject and each time I have been amazed by the breath of his knowledge," Mr Buffett told Time magazine.

    Mr Gates' wife also keeps a close eye on the effectiveness of the foundation's activities, Mr Buffett said.

    "Melinda, for her part, travels the world so that she can understand what a cheque from Seattle is actually accomplishing 10,000 miles away."

    In terms of assets, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation dwarfs that of other well-known names in US philanthropy, such as the Rockefeller Foundation or the Ford Foundation.

    Long term vision

    In language that would not seem out of place in a modern company business plan, the Gates' foundation has pledged to "aggressively pursue a comprehensive approach" in the fight against Aids. "We must marshal the will and resources necessary to develop and distribute an Aids vaccine," Mr Gates has said.

    The foundation is also keen to counter criticism that it focuses too much on the trouble facing other countries, and not enough on those in need in its own backyard.

    Almost half of the foundation's resources are directed towards domestic US issues, according to Mr Gates.

    The foundation's single biggest grant - of $1bn - was awarded to the United Negro College Fund, America's largest minority higher education assistance organisation.

    The foundation also promotes access to technology in public libraries and funds groups helping to improve the lives of people in the foundation's own corner of the US, the Pacific Northwest.

    Mr Gates has said his long term vision is to improve the lives of millions of people across the globe.

    It is no small order, but Microsoft's co-founder is one of the few people in the world whose money may actually be able to match his words.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3913581.stm

    I sent an email to Bill Gates commending his philanthropy! :)
    A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

  • #2
    That's the job I want, spend all day giving money and assistance to people, pure heaven.
    No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
    I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
    even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
    He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

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