BILL GATES' PHILANTHROPY

Mary Maxwell Gates

Gates’ philanthropic spirit may be in part credited to his late mother, Mary Maxwell Gates. Throughout his life his mother, a businesswoman and teacher, encouraged him to get his head out of books and interact with people. According to a 2009 Wall Street Journal article, it was Mary who urged him to give some of his wealth away.

Gates married Melinda, who is cofounder pf the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in 1994. In the early years of the Foundation, Bill was very focused on his work at Microsoft and Melinda therefore shaped the direction of the Foundation.

Bill Maxwell Gates

Bill Gates’ late father, a lawyer and co chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has always been passionate about fairness and wealth. In 2010, Gates Sr. helped lead the campaign for Initiative 1098, a ballot measure to create a state income tax for Washington. In an interview with GeekWire, Gates explained: “My dad has a well-developed sense of justice. He decided there should be an income tax. Based on the voters, not that many people agreed with him. But he had a firm conviction about that.”

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and friend of Bill Gates, gifted ten million shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Gates Foundation in June 2006, according to the Foundation’s site, which is paid in annual instalments. In a Facebook status in honour of Buffett’s 89th birthday, Melinda Gates wrote: "... Warren believes in the true role of philanthropy: To take risks where governments can’t and to be a true catalyst for change. Warren, you are that catalyst for Bill and me. You are our lift.” In a 2016 blog post celebrating 25 years of friendship Bill Gates wrote: “Warren has helped us do two things that are impossible to overdo in one lifetime: learn more and laugh more.”

Giving Pledge

Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett created the Giving Pledge in 2010. It is an open invitation for billionaires, or those who would be if not for their giving, to publicly commit to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic organisation that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan launched in 2015, is contributing $25 million to Bill Gates' accelerator for developing therapies and medicine to treat Covid-19.

The Prime Minister spoke to Bill and Melinda Gates in May to discuss the UK’s contribution to helping countries around the world tackle coronavirus and the work of the Gates Foundation in this area. They met again at the UK-hosted Global Vaccine Summit on June 4th.

Donald Trump

Bill Gates has been vocal in his criticism of Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic, particularly President Trump’s decision to halt funding for World Health Organisation in April.

of Business. One evening after work, Bill asked her if she wanted to go out for dinner, in two weeks time. She declined telling him she wanted spontaneity and an hour or so later she received a phone call from him asking “is this spontaneous enough for you?”

If Bill is deserving of a hero status, Melinda is too, perhaps even more so. It was Melinda who inspired the Foundation to focus on combating disease when as a new mother she read an article that described how children were still dying from diarrhoea. Now she is using her influence to protect women from the devastation of Covid-19. But no matter whether Gates' philanthropy is driven by Melinda or by pure intellectual curiosity, it does not make his actions any less valuable. As Batman says, "It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” Heroes are also defined by their enemies.

Last month, during the week polio was eradicated from Africa, 10,000 conspiracy theorists gathered in Trafalgar Square to protest against lockdowns, masks and vaccinations. In speeches they rallied against Bill Gates.

Of course, unthinking reverence of philanthropists could lead to abuses of power, but as it stands the Foundation is contributing to developing a vaccine that could save the world and we need all the heroes we can get.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Covid-19 response

• The Foundation has committed more than $350 million to support the global response to Covid-19. This includes:

• $250 million to improve detection, isolation, and treatment efforts; protect at-risk populations in Africa and South Asia; accelerate the development of vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics; and minimise the social and economic impacts of the pandemic. The Foundation announced $100 million to the global response in February, and then increased this commitment by an additional $150 million in April.

• $5 million to support the Covid-19 response in the Greater Seattle Area. This funding supported local public health efforts in Seattle & King County as well as six regional response funds that aim to meet the needs of those disproportionately impacted by Covid-19.

• $100 million to Gavi’s new Covid-19 Vaccine Advance Market Commitment, to support its future efforts to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to lower-income countries.

• In addition to the more than $350 million committed, the Foundation will also leverage a portion of its Strategic Investment Fund, which addresses market failures and helps make it attractive for private enterprise to develop affordable and accessible health products. For example, the Foundation is collaborating with Gavi and the Serum Institute of India to accelerate the manufacture and delivery of up to 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines for low- and middle-income countries. $150 million came from their Strategic Investment Fund.