OVERVIEW: As one of the largest grantmakers conducting funding across the globe, the Gates Foundation invests in a wide variety of focus areas at both the national and international levels.
IP TAKE: Small and large organizations will face heavy competition here from large INGOs; however, Gates occasionally grants smaller awards. It remains to be seen how the Gates Foundation will evolve given its founders’ impending divorce; however, one thing is certain: It’s not going anywhere. This is an excellent funder to have in your corner if you can secure funding. Gates likes to invest long-term in its grantees, but its pockets are deep, so it’s constantly funding new grantees.
Considered America’s largest private landowner, it remains to be seen if the foundation creates investments for environmental protection and climate change given Bill Gates’ considerable role in both as a self-appointed farmer. So far, Gates Ag One, the Gates’ newest nonprofit venture, has not announced plans to fill this gap.
The Gates Foundation isn’t afraid to make big bets despite mixed results. Between 2006 and 2017, the Gates Foundation paid private consultants from McKinsey and BCG, and elsewhere, $300 million to reform global health at the WHO and elsewhere with no notable success and despite vowing to no longer hire consultants.
For other funding opportunities, look to Melinda Gates’ future philanthropy as it develops post-divorce. As well, Warren Buffett no longer serves as a trustee for the Gates Foundation, so look for diverted funding there as well. Finally, Gates’ announcement in a 2022 Forbes interview that the foundation will only last another 25 years could signal increased opportunities for grantseekers, especially since it anticipates that its annual grant budget will grow to $9 billion by 2026.
PROFILE: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched in 2000, was founded by Microsoft co-founders Bill and Melinda Gates and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The Gates Foundation is believed to be the largest charitable organization in the United States, with an endowment of around $70 billion. The foundation’s mission is “guided by the belief that every life has equal value,” and the foundation “works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives.”
Gates conducts grantmaking at both the national and international levels. Its U.S. program centers on K-12 education, economic mobility, post-secondary success and Washington State. In contrast, the foundation’s global initiatives focus on global health, global development, global growth and opportunity, and global policy and advocacy. Given the foundation’s extensive funding on a global scale, it separates grantmaking by geographic designation (U.S. or global) rather than specific focus areas. Examine each area and subprogram on this funder’s complex and in-depth website for deeper insights into its evolving grantmaking strategies.
U.S. Program:
Grants for Education
The foundation’s stateside grantmaking for education focuses on K-12 education and post-secondary success, or higher education. The foundation supports STEM education through both programs, focusing on developing new technologies and improved methods for assessing student performance.
K-12 education funding works to “significantly increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who earn a diploma, enroll in a postsecondary institution, and are on track in their first year to obtain a credential with labor-market value.” This area of grantmaking prioritizes establishing networks to improve schools, preparing teachers, high-quality charter schools, aligned curriculum materials, pathways to postsecondary and career-training programs, improving emotional learning, as well as advancing innovations in education-related research. Past K-12 grantees include the New Teacher Center, which provides mentoring to novice teachers and studies its effect on students, and Education Trust, an advocacy group that promotes high quality educational opportunities for minority students in the U.S.
Grants for early-childhood education predominantly stem from Gates’s poverty in Washington State program, although Tennessee and Oregon have been named as states “where [the foundation] can make a difference.” The foundation prioritizes the development of quality teachers and research and advocacy for public preschool programs. Past ECE grants include Seattle, Washington’s White Center, which launched an Educare early childhood education hub, and the First Five Years Fund, an organization that advocates securing federal funding for early childhood programs in low-income communities through research and advocacy.
Gates’s Post-Secondary Success aims to “ensure that all students who seek the opportunity are able to complete a high-quality, affordable postsecondary education that leads to a sustainable career.” The program’s higher education giving strategies include remaining flexible, personalized, clear, affordable, and partnering with institutions. Past higher education grantees include Georgetown University, the Tennessee State College Collaborative on Reforming Education, the Foundation for California Community Colleges and the University of Texas, Austin. Gates also conducts grants for STEM education primarily through this program for health, medical, agricultural science research, and technology development through its U.S. Post-Secondary Success, Global Health and Global Development programs.
Grants for Work and Opportunity
The Gates Foundation’s Economic Mobility and Opportunity program aims to “ensure there are more actors at all levels committed to dramatically increasing mobility from poverty over the next decade.” Over the next four years, Gates has launched grantmaking in this area with a $158 million commitment. Grantmaking strategies include closing data gaps in research tracking economic mobility; empowering local citizens at the grassroots level; improving coordination and leverage in supporting partnerships with other funders that are developing new technologies and opportunities; and increasing public understanding through research identifying the most accurate messages about poverty and mobility. Past grantees for economic opportunity include the Tides Foundation, Stanford University, and Jobs for the Future.
Global Program:
Grants for Global Health and Development
Grantmaking through the foundation’s Global Health and Global Development programs often intersect. For example, Gates may award a grant toward polio eradication through its global development program rather than global health. Both are broad and include the following sub-programs: Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases; Malaria; HIV; Polio; Neglected Infectious Diseases; Tuberculosis; Vaccine delivery; Pneumonia; Discovery and Translational Sciences; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene; Family Planning; Maternal, Newborn and Child Health; Nutrition.
The foundation has always centered global health and infectious disease eradication in its giving, and this was driven home in a 2022 conversation at a Forbes event in which Gates was asked about the foundation’s agenda for the next 25 years and he replied, “Try and bring infectious disease, or all of the diseases that make the world inequitable, to bring those largely to an end, either through eradication or getting them down to very low levels."
Gates is a top donor of the WHO, it’s funding often steering and restricting the WHO’s developments. It has given hundreds of millions to a variety of causes meant to scale. In 2021, Gates gave $122 million over five years to the University of Washington School of Medicine. The grant is to be used to conduct a randomized trial of islatravir, a pill that may prevent HIV in women. Also in 2021, it pledged $922 million over five years to address global nutrition inequity, and in 2022, it pledged $7 billion over four years to improve health, gender equality, and farming across Africa.
Grants for Global Growth and Opportunity
In contrast to its U.S. counterpart, the Gates Foundation conducts grantmaking that benefits work and opportunity concerns through its Global Growth & Opportunity program, which consists of Agricultural Development, supporting “country-led inclusive agricultural transformation across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia;” Financial Services for the Poor; Gender Equality, which addresses “barriers facing women and girls to ensure they have an equal chance to thrive and lead healthy, productive lives;” and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, which promotes “safely managed, sustainable sanitation services, contributing to positive health, economic, and gender equality outcomes for the world’s poorest.”
Grants for Disaster Relief, Humanitarian Aid and Refugees
The Gates Foundation supports a variety of aid operations through its Emergency Response program. Specifically, the foundation focuses on distributing aid for rapid-onset emergencies, such as high-impact natural disasters and disease outbreaks; complex emergencies, such as political unrest or gender-based violence; and slow-onset emergencies, such as drought or famine.
For rapid-onset emergencies, grantees must be “pre-vetted.” This permits rapid-response grantees to receive funds within 24 to 48 hours after making a grant request. Past grantees in this area prioritize large-scale organizations, such as the International Rescue Committee or the United Nations. In contrast, grants for slow-onset and complex emergencies must follow regular Gates’ protocol.
While the Gates Foundation does not have a separate program to benefit refugees, much of its funding indirectly assists refugees. However, when funding is awarded to refugee-related issues, it is awarded through programs other than Emergency Relief and often given to projects that support women and children.
Grants for Women and Girls
While many of the foundation’s giving programs can be applied to improving the lives of girls and women around the world, the foundation conducts most of its girls and women-related grantmaking through Family Planning; Maternal, Newborn & Child Health; and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene. Past grantees include Population Action International and CARE. The foundation also awards gender equality-related grants through multiple giving programs. To learn more about Gates grantees across all programs, explore its excellent grants database.
In June 2021, Gates announced that it would spend $2.1 billion on gender-equality work over five years. According to The Wall Street Journal, the initiative is “intended to help women obtain training and financial services, to increase access to contraceptives and to help elevate women into leadership roles in health, law and economics.”
As well, in 2015, Melinda Gates launched Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company she founded. It is directly committed to women’s “power and influence’“ (Time). As a philanthropist, businesswoman and global advocate for women and girls, Melinda Gates has established herself as a powerhouse in women and girl’s philanthropy. Her company Pivotal Ventures goes a step further than the Gates Foundation working to “partner with organizations and individuals who share [their] urgency for social progress in the United States […] in order to “grow understanding around issues, expand participation, encourage cooperation and fuel new approaches that substantially improve people’s lives.” Though it does not accept grant proposals at this time, its investments fund a range of women’s issues, from childcare to career empowerment. Overall, the Gates family has committed billions to women and girls’ empowerment and health.
Other Opportunities:
In 2020, the Gates Foundation announced it is creating a new nonprofit, Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations, LLC. To be known as Gates Ag One, the entity aims to “speed up efforts to provide smallholder farmers in developing countries, many of whom are women, with access to the affordable tools and innovations they need to sustainably improve crop productivity and adapt to the effects of climate change.” Likely, grants here will apply to the global development space and overlap, somewhat, with climate change work though may not address Bill Gates’s own contribution to global emissions and farming given his standing as the world’s largest landowner.
Important Grant Details:
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grants range from $5,000 to $5 million, but most grants range from $300,000 to $1 million. Past Gates’ partners may receive preferential treatment. Overall, the Gates Foundation also invests in long-term efforts to support learning and innovation in building resilience. Fortunately, the Gates Foundation details its funding process under its How We Work section. The Gates Foundation website also features an excellent grants database, which helps potential grantees get a sense of the kinds of what kinds of groups it funds, where, and at what level.
This funder does not accept unsolicited proposals, but sometimes the foundation publishes a formal request for proposals, so grantseekers are advised to check the Gates’ website often. In general, Gates contacts organizations to solicit grant applications.
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