The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation says it will increase its annual payout in grants and other financial assistance by 50% to $9 billion by 2026, responding to what it describes as “compounding global crises” including the pandemic, inflation, the Russian war in Ukraine, and climate change.
Supporting the increased payout, Bill Gates says he is giving $20 billion to the foundation this month to bring the foundation’s total endowment to $70 billion. Gates had already committed a portion of this in a $15 billion joint pledge with Melinda French Gates last year. Their combined giving has met and exceeded that pledge, the foundation says.
The announcement Wednesday morning promises to cement the Seattle-based foundation’s philanthropic role in global health and U.S. education at a time of transition for the organization following the divorce of Gates Foundation co-chairs Gates and French Gates last year.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has continued to give $3.1 billion annually to the Gates Foundation since leaving the board last year. That brought Buffett’s total amount given to the foundation to $35.7 billion, although the value is closer to $45 billion due to increases in Berkshire Hathaway’s share price, Bill Gates says in a post.
However, the foundation says it’s important for others to step up against global challenges, as well.
The foundation’s announcement should be seen as “a real call to action to mobilize additional resources from elsewhere at a time of great need,” said Mark Suzman, Gates Foundation CEO, in an interview with GeekWire.
COVID-19 has reduced or reversed past progress in areas such as child mortality, vaccinations, access to HIV antiretrovirals, and malaria transmission, Suzman said. He cited setbacks in global food security and in U.S. education, with learning loss taking a larger toll on students of color and low-income populations.
“In all of these areas, we are feel it’s an important moment to step up our engagement and signal our long-term commitment,” Suzman said. “But we don’t want that, in any way, to be seen as substituting for either government or the private sector, or indeed other philanthropists.”
In a post about his gift, Bill Gates called the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “huge global setbacks.” However, he said, “it is important to remember that they are happening in the context of two decades’ worth of historic progress. I believe it is possible to mitigate the damage and get back to the progress the world was making.”
Gates said, “I hope others in positions of great wealth and privilege will step up in this moment too.”
The planned increase in the annual payout to $9 billion compares to $6 billion before the pandemic.
Headquartered across from Seattle’s Space Needle, the Gates Foundation employed 1,763 people globally as of the end of 2020. Suzman said employment will increase to help manage the increase in grant-giving but said the main focus will be on ensuring that the foundation’s grantees and partners see the benefits in their own impact.
Under a plan announced by the Gates Foundation last year, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates will continue to work together as co-chairs of the Gates Foundation through at least mid-2023. If she and Bill Gates decide at that point that they can no longer work together in that capacity, French Gates would resign as co-chair and trustee.
“Bill and Melinda are both absolutely fully committed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and demonstrating that every day in their work internally and externally,” Suzman said this week. He cited, as an example, a recent trip by French Gates to Africa on behalf of the Gates Foundation, including a funding announcement on tropical diseases.
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that French Gates “is no longer pledging to give the bulk of her wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and instead plans to spread it among philanthropic endeavors,” citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The report noted that French Gates may continue to make donations to the Gates Foundation even as she funds and donates to a wider variety of organizations and causes.
The foundation established a new board of trustees in January, appointing three outside trustees and Suzman to join co-chairs and Gates and French Gates on the board. The new board approved the increased payout, Suzman said.
They’ve had two virtual meetings to date, he said. Their first in-person meeting will be in August, followed by a January meeting where the new board will consider its first formal approval of the foundation’s annual budget.
Updated with additional details on the foundation’s endowment, spending and future plans.
