On the 25th anniversary of the Gates Foundation, one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates, has pledged to give away the bulk of his wealth through the foundation over the next 20 years – an estimated $200-billion over the timeframe – after which, the Gates Foundation will permanently close its doors.
Gates made the announcement on a blog post, stating: “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold on to resources that could be used to help people. That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned. I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world.
“During the first 25 years of the Gates Foundation – powered in part by the generosity of Warren Buffett – we gave away more than $100-billion,” writes Gates. “Over the next two decades, we will double our giving. The exact amount will depend on the markets and inflation, but I expect the foundation will spend more than $200-billion between now and 2045. This figure includes the balance of the endowment and my future contributions.”
In his post, it is clear that the former Microsoft supremo and one of the world’s best-known philanthropists did not take the decision lightly.
“When I first began thinking about how to give away my wealth, I did what I always do when I start a new project: I read a lot of books,” Gates writes. “I read books about great philanthropists and their foundations to inform my decisions about how exactly to give back. And I read books about global health to help me better understand the problems I wanted to solve.
“One of the best things I read was an 1889 essay by Andrew Carnegie called The Gospel of Wealth. It makes the case that the wealthy have a responsibility to return their resources to society, a radical idea at the time that laid the groundwork for philanthropy as we know it today.
“In the essay’s most famous line, Carnegie argues that ‘the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.’ I have spent a lot of time thinking about that quote lately. People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them. There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold on to resources that could be used to help people.
“That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned,” he continues. “I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world. And on December 31, 2045, the foundation will close its doors permanently.”
While the foundation’s strategies are not changing, over the next two decades, the foundation will work together with its partners to make as much progress as possible towards three primary goals:
Help end preventable deaths of moms and babies.
Ensure the next generation grows up without having to suffer from deadly infectious diseases.
Lift millions of people out of poverty, putting them on a path to prosperity.
The shift in the sunset date is driven by urgency and opportunity. The foundation hopes to capitalise on the extraordinary global progress in health and development between 2000 and 2025 – a period when child deaths were halved, deaths from deadly infectious diseases were significantly reduced, and hundreds of millions of people rose out of poverty.
Since 2000, the Gates Foundation contributed to saving 82-million lives through its support of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Together with its partners, the foundation also helped develop more than 100 innovations including vaccines, diagnostic tools, and treatments designed to meet the needs of people living in low- and middle- income countries. Taken together, these innovations – and the people who made them possible – helped change the trajectory of global health. Still, there are hundreds more innovations in the pipeline.
“The needs at this time are greater than any we’ve seen in the lifetime of the foundation, but the achievements of the past 25 years have shown the tremendous progress that is still possible,” says Mark Suzman, CEO and board member of the Gates Foundation. “That’s why, in the next two decades, working in close collaboration with our partners, we’ll deploy these new innovations and apply 25 years of learnings and progress to making an even bigger difference.”
Bill Gates’ full post can be read at: https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/save-lives/reader/20-years-to-give-away-virtually-all-my-wealth