Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

You may – or may not – know that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have donated £20bn since it was launched in back in 2000.

If you don’t know that now, the chances are that people will be very aware of the charity in the next few years; it is already the biggest private foundation in the world today. When Warren Buffett promised back in 2006 to donate most of his fortune to the foundation, its wealth has almost doubled.

Let’s not forget that Bill Gates has also pledged to give away 95 per cent of his wealth – if he makes it his mission to make charity work as successful as Microsoft, who knows how this could go.

Disease and Poverty

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation concentrates on disease and poverty across the globe. Bill Gates wants to invest for large returns (coined by Gates as catalytic philanthropy).

Huge sums of money have been invested to eradicate polio along with malaria. The foundation also partners with governments, other charities and non-government organisations to maximise their strategies’ effectiveness.

Funding research into new vaccines and drugs, and providing seed funding for various ideas also comes into play.

Gates said;

“We think an essential role of philanthropy is to make bets on promising solutions that governments and businesses can’t afford to make. As we learn which bets pay off, we have to adjust our strategies and share the results so everyone can benefit.”

The foundation has also pledged £31m in September this year to help tackle the Ebola virus.