COVID-19 prompts surge in generosity for Gates Philanthropy Partners

Two decades ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was established for a deceptively simple purpose: To give away our co-founders’ money to help make the world a better place.

Yet soon after we began making grants, we encountered an unanticipated—but wonderful—challenge: More money, from wholly unexpected sources.

Inspired by the foundation’s work to fight inequity and improve global health, people across the globe began sending us unsolicited donations, ranging from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars. We received a handwritten note from a 6-year-old asking us to use his allowance to help others, and an email from a U.S. mail carrier donating his life savings to help the foundation achieve its goals. Year after year, more of these unexpected contributions arrived from people who wanted our work to succeed.

Gates Philanthropy Partners’ role in giving

Ultimately, we created Gates Philanthropy Partners (GPP) in 2016 to respond to this outpouring of generosity from scores of people with a desire to give. GPP is a 501(c)(3) public charity that provides a streamlined, transparent way for donors to align their gifts with the work of the Gates Foundation. GPP’s funding decisions are made in consultation with the foundation’s experts and leaders, and they support existing, trusted foundation grantees.

In the early days, notes from donors often referenced Warren Buffett, who in 2006 donated the majority of his fortune to the Gates Foundation. Many wanted to follow his example, including with their checks earnest notes about wanting to make the world a little better. GPP grew quickly, from 138 donors in 2017 to 601 donors in 2018 and 1,490 in 2019, despite minimal efforts to promote GPP.

Still, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we were stunned by the overwhelming generosity that came our way.

People felt an enormous desire to help, but many didn’t know where to turn—so they turned to us. Realizing that donors were looking to the foundation for ways to aid the pandemic response, our GPP team moved quickly to establish the Combating COVID-19 Fund in March 2020. We worked closely with the foundation’s COVID-19 and Emergency Response teams to identify funding needs that our individual donors from all around the world would support.

Giving to help combat COVID-19

Two weeks after we created the fund, I found myself tucked away in my converted home office, stuffing thousands of envelopes with thank-you notes. Donations to GPP had surged from the usual flow of 200 per month to more than 3,000 over just a couple of weeks. By the end of 2020, more than 5,000 donors from over 60 countries had contributed a staggering US$163 million to GPP.

In mid-April 2020—and in record time—we issued GPP’s first COVID-19 grant of US$1.2 million to Mologic, a company developing rapid COVID-19 testing tools for sub-Saharan Africa. In quick succession, we made additional grants to other organizations in the region—which we anticipated would be hard hit by the pandemic—so they could bolster public health messaging and response efforts.

Supporting the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator

One of the boldest initiatives GPP has supported is the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, a collaboration between Wellcome, Mastercard, and the Gates Foundation that supports research into COVID-19 treatments that can be used globally, with a focus on low-resource settings. We knew that the potential for failure would be high, but that the potential reward—identifying effective new treatments—would be even higher. As donors around the world sent contributions, some in honor of loved ones lost in the early days of the pandemic, our team worked to put those gifts to use, shoring up testing in low-income countries and supporting frontline health workers in Africa and South Asia.

By the end of 2020, GPP had granted US$95 million to 36 grantees. Even as the pandemic trajectory changed weekly, one of our grantees—the frontline medical humanitarian organization Alima—was able to build health worker capacity during the first months of the pandemic, attributing that ability to GPP donor support. Alima also told us that the generosity of GPP donors allowed them to respond to the surge in cases in Africa many months later.

When the Delta variant hit India and Indonesia especially hard this past summer, our inboxes were filled again. More notes, more checks—and more grants out the door.

Generosity and #GivingTuesday in real time

The outpouring of generosity to GPP from individuals, companies, and foundations has been humbling. And essential. In these incredibly challenging times, generosity of all kinds—whether it’s bringing a meal to a neighbor or donating to an organization that’s working to transform the lives of people an ocean away—can make all the difference.

Thankfully, GPP is far from alone in the giving we have seen. This year’s #GivingTuesday saw at least 35 million people in the U.S. donate more than US$2.7 billion, a 9% increase over 2020’s record-breaking US$2.4 billion. Millions more people participated in national movements in 80 countries. Numbers like these tell an encouraging story—one about the power, and the rewards, of giving.

As we celebrate this season of giving, we invite you to explore our committed grants and impact reports to learn more about our amazing donors and the organizations we support on their behalf.