2009
MARCH | The Washington Families Fund, an unprecedented public-private partnership led by Building Changes, announces it is embarking upon a bold, new approach to end homelessness among families with children throughout Washington state, with the goal of reducing the problem by 50 percent in the next decade. The foundation commits up to $60 million over 10 years to the effort.
FEBRUARY | During a visit to Nigeria to learn about the country’s efforts to combat polio, Bill Gates announces a $25 million partnership with the World Bank to purchase more than 100 million doses of oral polio vaccine for Nigeria.
JANUARY | Bill releases his first Annual Letter, offering a candid and personal appraisal of the foundation’s efforts to date as well as his priorities for its future. Along with outlining new, ambitious goals to combat hunger and poverty and improve education in the United States, Bill makes a strong case for increased foreign assistance for health and development in the face of the global economic crisis. The foundation partners with Rotary International and the British and German governments to announce commitments totaling $630 million to eradicate polio. This includes a $255 million challenge grant, which Rotary will match with $100 million raised by its members.
2008
DECEMBER | The foundation's staff count exceeds 700 and the foundation makes grants totaling $2.8 billion during 2008.
NOVEMBER | The foundation convenes national education leaders in Seattle to discuss strategy to increase college readiness and completion.
SEPTEMBER | Bill Gates addresses the UN General Assembly, praising the Millennium Development Goals and calling for increased efforts to meet them. He also announces a $168 million grant to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and a $66 million grant to support a new World Food Programme initiative. Jeff Raikes officially takes over as CEO of the foundation, succeeding Patty Stonesifer, who continues to work for the foundation as a senior advisor.
AUGUST | As part of the foundation's response to the global food crisis, it announces a package of four grants, totaling $176 million, to help those most affected by the crisis and support small-scale farmers in developing countries. These grants call attention to the need for sustained long-term action from a wide range of partners to address the causes and consequences of the crisis.
JULY | Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg announce commitments totaling $500 million to help reduce tobacco use in the developing world. Ground is broken for the construction of the foundation’s new home in downtown Seattle.
JUNE | Bill Gates makes his official transition from Microsoft to a more hands-on and day-to-day role at the foundation.
MAY | Jeff Raikes is named the new CEO of the foundation.
FEBRUARY | Patty Stonesifer announces she is stepping down as CEO to pursue a different role with the foundation.
JANUARY | Expanding on his Harvard address, Bill speaks in detail about the concept of creative capitalism in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He also announces a $306 million package of Agricultural Development grants designed to boost the yields and incomes of millions of small farmers in Africa and South Asia.
2007
NOVEMBER | The foundation announces a $50 million commitment to support targeted HIV-prevention programs in China, through collaboration with nonprofit, government, and private sector partners.
OCTOBER | At a forum of leading malaria scientists and policymakers, Bill and Melinda call for a new global commitment to the long-term goal of eradicating malaria. The foundation launches the $100 million Grand Challenges Explorations initiative to encourage scientists to explore creative, unorthodox ideas that could lead to major global health breakthroughs.
SEPTEMBER | Sound Families awards its last round of grants.
JUNE | The foundation establishes advisory panels for each of its three program areas to encourage a diversity of voices and feedback on the foundation’s core areas of investment. Bill returns to Harvard to receive an honorary degree. He delivers the university’s commencement speech and discusses his optimism about creative capitalism—using market forces to reduce global inequities—and challenges graduates to use their intellectual talents to combat the world’s most pressing problems.
2006
OCTOBER | The foundation creates a two-trust structure: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which distributes money to grantees, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which manages the endowment assets.
SEPTEMBER | The foundation partners with the Rockefeller Foundation to launch the Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA). AGRA is an Africa-based, Africa-led organization working to help revitalize agriculture on the continent and enable small farmers to overcome hunger and poverty. The foundations commit an initial investment of $150 million to develop and distribute improved seeds for farmers in Africa. AGRA appoints Kofi Annan as the chairman of the board in June 2007.
JUNE | Warren Buffett pledges to donate 10 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock to the foundation. At the time of the pledge, the gift is worth approximately $31 billion and will be delivered over time in annual installments. This gift will help the foundation deepen and accelerate the work already under way in its core giving areas of Global Health, Global Development, and U.S. Program. Bill makes public his plan to transition from Microsoft to the foundation in July 2008, marking his evolution from benefactor to becoming more deeply engaged with the foundation’s strategic initiatives.
APRIL | The foundation is restructured into four core areas that will enable the organization to increase its strategic focus and impact: U.S. Program, led by Allan Golston; Global Health, led by Dr. Tadataka “Tachi” Yamada; Global Development, led by Sylvia Mathews Burwell; Operations, led by Martha Choe, named chief administrative officer in 2008.
JANUARY | Bill helps kick off the Global Plan to Stop TB in Davos, Switzerland, and announces that the foundation will invest $900 million over the next 10 years to address this critical global health issue.
2005
The foundation significantly increases its public voice and dedicates more resources to its advocacy efforts.
DECEMBER | Time magazine names Bill, Melinda, and Bono persons of the year for their philanthropic work.
NOVEMBER | Time magazine features Bill and President Bill Clinton in a question-and-answer segment as part of the magazine-sponsored global health summit.
OCTOBER | The foundation continues to deepen its anti-malaria work7 with the announcement of grants totaling $258 million to develop a malaria vaccine, new drugs, and innovative mosquito control methods. The foundation has since continued to increase its support for malaria programs, with a total of $1.4 billion committed as of 2008.
JUNE | The foundation provides $436.6 million in Grand Challenges grants to support innovative global health research projects in more than 30 countries.
JANUARY | Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels joins Patty in announcing that the foundation will make its permanent home in the heart of downtown Seattle across from the Space Needle. The foundation’s libraries program splits into two programs—Global Libraries and U.S. Libraries—and continues to evolve. The foundation announces the final round of Staying Connected challenge grants. The foundation awards Public Access Computing Hardware Upgrade Grants in 2006. The foundation awards Opportunity Online Hardware grants in 2007–2009.
2004
OCTOBER | The foundation creates a Strategic Opportunities initiative to explore new areas where the foundation could have the greatest impact in its global work.
FEBRUARY | As part of a two-day summit on high school education sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA),8 Bill delivers a speech describing America’s high schools as “obsolete” and says the nation has an economic and social imperative to improve them. The NGA, the foundation, and five other partners launch a $42 million initiative to translate this call into action.
JANUARY | Early evaluations of the foundation’s Sound Families Initiative help inspire the Washington State Legislature to establish the Washington Families Fund, the nation’s first public-private partnership that provides sustainable funding to affordable housing projects statewide. The foundation goes on to make $4 million in contributions to the fund, which totals more than $18 million. Melinda tours West Virginia’s Sissonville Public Library and announces new Staying Connected grants, which will support efforts to sustain and improve public access computing in public libraries.
2003
The foundation’s original libraries initiative concludes, meeting its goal of connecting nearly every public library in the United States with computers and training.
SEPTEMBER | Bill and Melinda’s commitment to improving global health deepens with a learning trip to Africa. In Mozambique, they visit infants with life-threatening malaria and observe promising malaria vaccine research at the Manhiça Health Research Center.
JANUARY | Avahan (“call to action” in Sanskrit), the foundation’s first in-country staffed HIV/AIDS prevention initiative, is launched in India with an initial commitment of $100 million. The foundation launches the $200 million Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative to encourage scientists to develop revolutionary solutions to infectious diseases in developing countries.
2002
MAY | The foundation commits $50 million to support the launch of The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), an innovative partnership between the private and public sectors focused on supporting local food-fortification efforts in developing countries.
MARCH | Bill Gates Sr. and President Jimmy Carter visit public health officials, clinic workers, and community members in Africa as part of a learning tour about HIV/AIDS.
JANUARY | Bill Gates and Bono call upon world leaders at the World Economic Forum to join together to address the complex social and economic issues affecting Africa. Patty Stonesifer takes learning trips to Senegal and Cleveland, Ohio, to get a hands-on perspective of the complex issues the foundation is working to address. In Senegal, she meets with sex workers living with HIV. In Cleveland, she visits East Technical High School.
2001
MARCH | The foundation continues to expand and accelerate its global health work, particularly in infectious disease prevention, and announces a $60 million microbicide grant in conjunction with the launch of the Global Microbicide Project.
JANUARY | Building on the success of its U.S. program, the Libraries initiative forms its first relationships with partners outside the country, awarding its first grant in Chile.
2000
The foundation launches the Sound Families Initiative to triple the number of transitional housing units paired with on-site support services for homeless families in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties in Washington state.
The William H. Gates Foundation merges with the Gates Learning Foundation and is renamed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The merger’s goal is to build the right organizations, teams, and strategies to increase the efficacy of grantmaking. The main initiatives of the organization are:
- Global Health
- Education
- Libraries
- Pacific Northwest (PNW)
Bill and Melinda contribute nearly $16 billion to the newly merged foundation, which moves to a new office on Lake Union in Seattle.
FALL | Trips to developing nations help shape the co-chairs’ thinking about the complex issues affecting the world’s poor. Bill visits the NDMC Maternal & Child Health Chanakyapuri clinic in Delhi, India, announces a $25 million grant to support polio vaccinations, and helps administer oral polio vaccines to children. During a learning tour to Thailand, Melinda tours the Huay Fon Well Baby Clinic in Chiang Rai, where she administers polio vaccines to children.
MARCH | The foundation officially launches its education programs with a $350 million commitment based on three priority areas:
- Model schools and districts
- Professional development opportunities for teachers and school leaders
- The elimination of barriers to higher education through scholarship programs
In Davos, Switzerland, the foundation helps formally launch GAVI.
1999
Nelson Mandela visits the foundation, discussing the importance of strategic, impactful giving in a forum with employees.
NOVEMBER | The foundation makes an initial grant of $750 million to the GAVI Alliance to accelerate the delivery of life-saving vaccines to the world’s poorest children.
SEPTEMBER | Bill and Melinda Gates announce a $1 billion Gates Millennium Scholars gift to the United Negro College Fund aimed at improving the level of diversity in higher education and fostering a generation of leaders who represent the full range of talents in society.
MAY | The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) receives a $25 million grant from Bill and Melinda, the largest charitable gift to that date in the AIDS epidemic. The grant allows IAVI to more than double vaccine development efforts.
1998
DECEMBER | The foundation’s global health emphasis takes root with an initial gift of $100 million to the Bill and Melinda Gates Children’s Vaccine Program.
FEBRUARY | Bill and Melinda Gates travel in a bookmobile and tour public libraries in Alabama, the first state to receive grants supporting libraries’ efforts to provide free computer and Internet access.
1997
Patty Stonesifer leads the newly formed Gates Library Foundation and the William H. Gates Foundation continues as a separate organization.
JUNE | The Gates Library Foundation is established as a sister philanthropy to the William H. Gates Foundation to help bridge the digital divide and ensure that if you can get to a public library in the United States, that you can access the Internet.
1994–1996
DECEMBER 1994 | Bill and Melinda consolidate their giving to address two main issues—global health and community needs in the Pacific Northwest—and form the William H. Gates Foundation with an initial stock gift of $94 million. The new foundation is managed by Bill Gates Sr.