Philanthropy Work

Bill Gates, who has been one of the wealthiest men in the world for decades, made his fortune as the co-founder of Microsoft. The company, which was a key player in the personal computer revolution in the 1990s, eventually became a corporate behemoth, and Gates became a household name as a tech titan and business magnate.

Gates stepped down as Microsoft CEO in January 2000, shifting his attention to philanthropy and other assorted projects. In March 2020, Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board, though he maintains about 1.3% of shares in the company. In 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates, alongside billionaire investor Warren Buffett, founded the “Giving Pledge,” a movement encouraging other billionaires to donate most of their wealth to charity either during their lifetimes or after their deaths. The voluntary group now includes more than 200 families and individuals from more than 20 countries.

Bill and Melinda Gates have given $45.5 billion to charitable causes, including the eponymously named Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, since 1994, CNBC reported, citing the Chronicle of Philanthropy. In 2019, the couple donated $589 million to charity, making them the seventh most philanthropic people last year.

Despite these significant contributions and pledges, Gates remains one of the wealthiest people in the world. From 2000 to 2007, Bill Gates was the richest man in the world, and rotated that title with Buffett and Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim from 2008 to 2013. In 2018, Gates lost the title to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Gates remains the second-richest man in the world, according to Forbes.

Most Impactful and Life-Changing Philanthropic Projects

• 1. Global Health Division

  If there’s any charitable work that Bill Gates is most associated with it is the quest to eradicate malaria. This can be in to form of supporting access to proven healthcare tools, funding research into path-breaking new ones, and even increasing access to health interventions for the people and places that need it most. Some of the many areas this division focuses on include: diarrheal diseases, HIV, Malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, neglected tropical diseases, vaccine development, maternal and child health, epidemiology, and research and discovery sciences.

• 2. Global Development Division

  The Global Development Division aims to identify and fund the delivery of high-impact solutions that can reduce health inequities and give everyone the opportunity to live healthy, productive lives by supporting innovative approaches and expand existing ones so they reach the people who are most in need. Some of the many areas this division focusses on include: emergency response development, family planning, global libraries, integrated health services delivery, nutrition, polio, maternal and child health, and vaccine delivery.

• 3. Global Growth & Opportunity Division

  Nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide live on less than US $1.90 a day, and more than 1 billion suffer from chronic hunger. This is a massive global issue that it will take more than money to fix. But their foundation is working hard to tackle it and has invested in data and measurement to understand the underlying causes of poverty and develop evidence-based solutions that can be delivered at scale. The main issues this division is focused on include: agricultural development to curb world hunger, financial services and business loans for the poor, gender equality, and water, sanitation, and hygiene improvement.

• 4. United States Division

  The primary focus of this division is on ensuring that all students graduate from high school prepared for college and have an opportunity to earn a postsecondary degree with labor-market value. The foundation’s approach is to play a catalytic role—to support the development of innovative solutions in education that are unlikely to be generated by institutions working alone and that can trigger change on a broader scale.

• 5. Global Policy & Advocacy Division

  The Global Policy and Advocacy Division engages in promotion efforts to support public policies that advance their work, build strategic alliances with governments and the public and private sectors, and foster greater public awareness of urgent global issues. This part of the foundation brings together teams dedicated to advocacy, policy analysis, media and communications, government relations, as well as strengthening philanthropic partnerships and the charitable sector in the United States and overseas.