The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced today a $15 billion gift from its two chief benefactors — their largest in two decades — and an expansion of its board, which has long been criticized as too small and insular. The foundation also disclosed an agreement between the two philanthropists that could lead to the departure of Melinda French Gates from the grant maker as the couple pursues divorce.
The gift is the couple’s largest since their transfer of $20 billion in Microsoft stock in 2000. It eclipses the recent big gifts of other megaphilanthropists. Jeff Bezos put $10 billion toward reducing climate change last year, and MacKenzie Scott has announced gifts of nearly $8.5 billion to hundreds of nonprofits in 2020 and 2021.
Although Bill Gates said in a statement that he and Melinda made the gift to sustain the foundation’s mission “for years to come,” Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation, said in an interview with the Chronicle that it did not signal that the couple’s giving might diminish as they end their marriage. The money is not earmarked but will go to the foundation’s endowment, which stands at about $50 billion.
Suzman said the foundation has been stretched by the demands of global crises in recent years and wants to take on more critical work. “Hopefully, this will give us more firepower,” he said.
Diverse Perspectives
The decision to expand the number of trustees follows the announcement last month by financier Warren Buffett that he will step down as a trustee, leaving the Gateses as the only two members. It should answer in part criticism that the three of them wielded too much power and lacked the broad perspective to lead effectively.
In a statement, French Gates said: “These governance changes bring more diverse perspectives and experience to the foundation’s leadership.”
New trustees will be named in January 2022. Suzman and Connie Collingsworth, the foundation’s chief operating officer and chief legal officer, will lead an effort with the foundation’s leadership team along with “experts inside and outside the foundation” to make recommendations for the number of trustees and the selection process, according to a statement from the organization.
“We will be looking for strong, independent voices who have different kinds of expertise and knowledge,” Suzman said. The Gateses ultimately will determine whom to invite to join them in leading the world’s largest grant maker.
With new trustees arriving, the foundation concluded it should make public the possibility that French Gates might leave the foundation, according to Suzman. As part of their divorce, the two have agreed that if after two years, they cannot work together as foundation leaders, French Gates will resign. Gates, in turn, would give her unspecified funds separate from the foundation endowment for her own philanthropic work.
This news is a change of course for the foundation. When the Gateses announced in May their impending divorce, the foundation said the two would continue to work together at the foundation. Suzman stressed that he still expected “Bill and Melinda to be longtime co-chairs.”
“We’re not changing any of our strategies, plans, or goals,” he added. In her statement, French Gates said: “I believe deeply in the foundation’s mission and remain fully committed as co-chair to its work.”
Julie Sunderland, former director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Strategic Investment Fund, said she was saddened by the potential departure of French Gates because it would break up an effective team. “They worked from complementary perspectives,” she said. “Bill is deep in data, and Melinda is really human.”
Sunderland praised the planned expansion of the board, which she had called for in an opinion piece written with Alex Friedman, a former chief financial officer of the foundation. She said she had great faith in Suzman, a 14-year Gates veteran who’s been CEO since February 2020, to lead a process that will bring strong independent voices into the foundation’s leadership.
“You have to be able to stand up and speak truth to Bill — which he appreciates — and focus on the north star of maximizing the benefit that the Gates Foundation can do,” she said.
