Our mission is to create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life.
For 20 years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been committed to fighting the greatest inequities in the world.
We can't achieve our goals on our own. We work together with businesses, government, and nonprofits, and each partner plays a specific role in accelerating progress.
Foundation facts
Funding summary
FAQ
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is proud of what our grantees do to improve the lives of people who have the most urgent needs and the fewest champions. We encourage people who want to advance these causes to give directly to our grantees.
You can learn more about the essential work of our grantees by:
- Reviewing our database of committed grants
We prefer that people give directly to our grantees, but from time to time, individuals generously offer to contribute money to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In response, we created Gates Philanthropy Partners, a 501(c)(3) public charity closely affiliated with the foundation. Gates Philanthropy Partners disburses donor contributions in alignment within the foundation’s programmatic objectives.
See our Grant Opportunities.
Many individuals enjoy tax benefits as a result of making charitable contributions. The amount of tax savings received depends on both the size of the charitable contributions and the person's annual income.
Bill and Melinda have been exceptionally generous in making contributions to the foundation, donating sums much larger than their annual incomes. As a result, the tax savings they receive from these contributions represent a very small percentage of the contributions.
From 1994 through 2018, Bill and Melinda gave the foundation more than $36.0 billion. Those donations resulted in a tax savings of approximately 11% of the contributions they made over that time.
To learn more about employment opportunities with the foundation and how to apply, visit our Careers section.
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More about the foundation
We are focused on results. Those that can be measured. And those measured in ways beyond numbers.
To ensure transparency and access, the foundation provides information on various policies, statements, and definitions.
We’ve funded thousands of projects, large and small. Our database includes payments made and committed from 1994 onward.