Gates Foundation Confirms Increase in Endowment

SEATTLE -- The William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation are coming together as a single organization called the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As Bill and Melinda’s giving increased it became clear that the programs of the two organizations were overlapping. The Foundation will support programs in global health and learning, with the hope that as we move into the 21st century advances in these critical areas will be available for all people.

Global health is a major focus of Bill and Melinda’s giving. Recent strategic and collaborative gifts include: $50 million to the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) to accelerate the development of a new vaccine to prevent malaria; The Bill and Melinda Gates Children’s Vaccine Program, a $100 million commitment to speed the delivery of life-saving vaccines to children in developing countries; Motherhood Mortality Reduction, a $50 million program administered by Columbia University to prevent maternal death in pregnancy and childbirth in the poorest countries; and a $25 million gift to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to assist with the development of an AIDS vaccine.

Learning is the parallel focus of Bill and Melinda’s philanthropic work. Recent grants include: a $200 million commitment to bring computers, Internet access, and training to low-income libraries in the United States and Canada; and grants to the Teacher Leadership Project and Smart Tools Academy in Washington state to improve access to technology and training throughout the K-12 system at the administrative levels.

The consolidation of the two Foundations reflects increased efficiency and communication between the global health and learning initiatives, and an opportunity to continue to build the asset base for these critical programs well into the next century.

The Foundation will be led by Bill’s father, William H. Gates, Sr., and Patty Stonesifer, as co-chairs.

Bill and Melinda Gates have increased their Foundation endowment over the course of the last two years, with enhancements of approximately $5 billion in each of the first three quarters of 1999, bringing the total assets of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to more than $17 billion.