Long before they became the donors we know them as today, Bill and Melinda Gates were steeped in acts of charity as young people. Their parents instilled philanthropic values in them through contributions to the church collection basket and volunteering with local nonprofits.
When the couple’s own children were young, the Gateses required them to set aside a portion of their monthly allowance for charity. “It really does come back to your family home,” Melinda Gates said Tuesday.
The virtual conversation, moderated by Shena Ashley, vice president of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, marked the launch of the Gates Foundation’s annual Greater Giving Summit. This year, the gathering is retooled as a series of virtual meetings spanning four months.
The Gateses spoke about their inspiration to give back and how they hope the philanthropic sector will grow.
While digital giving is less visible than passing the hat, Bill Gates says it has the potential to democratize philanthropy beyond the very wealthy. The donors he calls “everyday givers” power the philanthropic world he said, contributing not only money but time. While many of these donors make small financial contributions, they build valuable ties with local organizations. These donors’ understanding of their community’s needs help keep nonprofits accountable to their beneficiaries, he said.
“If you could double either the big givers or the everyday givers, I’d pick the everyday givers because of that deep engagement,” Bill Gates said. He added that, ideally, both groups of donors would double in size.
Melinda Gates remarked that the largest donors can spotlight the work of nonprofits led by women, people of color, and LGBTQ people — which are often underfunded. She cited MacKenzie Scott’s transformational gifts to 512 nonprofits last year as an example. Another was the gifts by Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, of $40 million in scholarships to each of three organizations: Morehouse College, Spelman College, and the United Negro College Fund.
Big donors can also “bootstrap the sector,” said Bill Gates. Contributing a large gift to a community foundation, for example, can benefit nonprofits throughout a region, he said. The couple was adamant that nonprofits had the skills to face today’s challenges and urged more donors to support them in that work.
The event also highlighted winners of the Reimagine Charitable Giving Challenge, which awarded as much as $100,000 to ideas for ways that help small-dollar donors support their own or other communities in need. The challenge was funded by the Gates Foundation.
One of the winners was HasanaH, which vets thousands of global nonprofits and fundraising campaigns in an effort to simplify faith-based giving on a single site. Users can also launch their own fundraising drives on the site. The concept is particularly useful for Muslim donors — who give zakat, a portion of their wealth, to charity each year — because it ensures each vetted project meets Islamic laws for alms giving. Coin Up, another winner, is an app that rounds up purchases made on a designated credit or debit card and donates that spare change to charity each month.
The Greater Giving Summit is an invitation-only event and will next convene virtually on March 30.
