In a sentence: Global health funding is mostly a government function, with philanthropic partners representing a small fraction of overall giving, often focused on specific areas such as infectious diseases, nutrition or reproductive health.
What’s going on
Fighting infectious diseases is the largest global health funding priority worldwide. But thanks to substantial progress in this fight over the past two decades, today, global health philanthropy also addresses many other aspects of health, including noncommunicable diseases, reproductive health, rights, and care; healthcare administration and financing; and much more, which we explore in-depth in our State of American Philanthropy paper.
Global health is a complex field, and funders increasingly consider the ways health is intertwined with issues including climate change, poverty and housing and food insecurity. Still, most top funders of global health focus their efforts on specific issues, such as strengthening health systems (a priority for the Helmsley Charitable Trust), promoting nutritious food, or reproductive health (a focus of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, among others).
The COVID-19 pandemic clarified the needs, challenges and inequities in global health. For some funders, this led to a shift in priorities and a commitment to working together for the global community. U.S. funders’ giving for global health had experienced a downturn in the years prior to COVID, but in response to the pandemic, traditional global health funders stepped up their giving, and others joined them to provide relief.
It’s important to put philanthropic giving for global health into context. Addressing global health is primarily a government function, with philanthropy representing only a small fraction of overall funding. Philanthropists generally partner with government and state-supported agencies to achieve goals. Much of the global health funding from U.S. philanthropy goes to U.S.-based affiliates and intermediaries that distribute resources through partnerships with local communities and governments.
By the numbers
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private U.S. funder of global health by a substantial margin. It gave almost $12 billion for global health from 2014 to 2018, according to Candid data, while other top funders gave in the hundreds of millions.
Key funders
U.S. philanthropy for global health is dominated by large, private foundations. The Gates Foundation is by far the largest funder in this field. Other key funders include the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Rockefeller Foundation. The United Nations Foundation, which was founded by a $1 billion gift from Ted Turner in 1998 and today is funded by a mix of individual, corporate and government donors, is also a significant funder in this field.
Corporate giving for global health often comes from pharmaceutical companies, including Boehringer Ingelheim and Pfizer, many of which give through product donations. The MAC AIDS Fund was the largest corporate-affiliated funder for global health from 2014 to 2018.
Major donors giving for global health include Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna, who’ve emerged as significant funders in this space in recent years, working through Open Philanthropy. MacKenzie Scott has also made large gifts for global health.
New and notable
Food for thought
“The pandemic has exposed what those of us in the field already know: Public health is inextricably linked with our social, economic and healthcare systems. To go forward, we must build better systems that weave health into all aspects of society.” — José Luis Castro, president and CEO of Vital Strategies, one of the top recipients of global health funding, here.
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