More years of big giving from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are on the way, the foundation’s chief executive, Mark Suzman, told the Chronicle this week.
The fund added nearly $3 billion to its grant making budget over the past two years to respond to Covid and now says it will continue giving at that level — about $6.7 billion a year — to deal with other major threats like climate change and economic mobility that are putting at risk efforts to advance global health and U.S. education, which have long been the grant maker’s priority causes. Advancing gender equality could become another area for increased spending, Suzman said.
Suzman disclosed that plan in an interview ahead of today’s announcement that the foundation is adding four people to its governing board. In addition to naming Suzman to the board, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates have added a philanthropy insider, a billionaire, and a baroness to the board that oversees the global philanthropy giant, now worth well over $50 billion.
The expansion of the board follows the death of co-chair Bill Gates Sr. in 2020 and last year’s decision by longtime board member and donor Warren Buffett to step down. And it comes after the couple announced their divorce and their desire to add more independent voices to lead the foundation.
Concerns About Billionaire Giving
The new board members join Gates as the foundation and other big philanthropies have come under increased criticism for the concentration of power in the hands of a few megadonors without having to incorporate input from others about how to best improve people’s lives.
Suzman says he is aware that big philanthropy is often called a “fig leaf” donors can use to maintain appearances while they “maintain a system which actually promotes wider inequities and challenges.”
A board with independent members, he says, is a way to keep the foundation focused on how to improve in its work.
Joining Suzman on the board are Strive Masiyiwa, chief executive of telecommunications company Econet Global, Baroness Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, director of the London School of Economics, and Thomas Tierney, co-founder and co-chair of the Bridgespan Group, a philanthropy consulting organization.
Born in Zimbabwe, Masiyiwa and his wife, Tsitsi, signed the Giving Pledge, an effort started by the Gateses and Buffett to encourage billionaires to give away at least half of their wealth. Shafik is an economist born in Egypt who has held high-level posts in the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund. Her book What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract, was published last year.
In Tierney, the foundation has tapped a figure well-known in philanthropy circles. At Bridgespan, Tierney has led efforts to increase giving by the ultra-rich. The nonprofit consulting group was instrumental in helping MacKenzie Scott launch her solo philanthropy efforts after her divorce from Jeff Bezos.
In July, Scott and French Gates collaborated for the first time when they each contributed an unspecified amount to the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, which steered $48 million to nonprofits trying to advance gender equality.
Although Scott’s philanthropy looks a lot different than the Gates Foundation’s — hers relies on a small number of consultants who have advised her as she spread money to a wide number of nonprofits, while the Gates Foundation has a large staff that tends to dig deep into a limited number of issues — Suzman noted Scott and leaders at the Gates Foundation share a commitment to give more and to set an example for others to give.
“If you are considering philanthropy at scale, or if you are an existing philanthropy, this is the moment. The needs are greater than ever,” Suzman says.
While many philanthropy experts have long urged the Gateses to add more people to its governing board to ensure greater public accountability over its tax-exempt assets, the additions are notable for lacking anybody in a grassroots or community role.
The appointment of Tierney is also likely to raise questions about the influence of Bridgespan now that it is playing a significant role in guiding two major philanthropic powerhouses. Tierney declined to comment through a spokeswoman.
Who Can Help Save More Lives?
Last summer, the Gates Foundation reported assets of $50 billion, before an additional infusion of $15 billion from Gates and French Gates. In 2021 the Gates Foundation distributed more than $6.7 billion in grants, which don’t include loans, loan guarantees, and other forms of financing, according to Suzman, who will gather online with other trustees next month at the new board’s first meeting, one of three the group plans to hold annually.
“We’ve actually increased our payout significantly over the last three or five years, and we are planning at this stage to continue with roughly that level of giving,” pending approval by the new board, Suzman says.
As the foundation gives more, it might also add more board members, Suzman said.
The foundation has authorized three more spots on the board, but there is no timeline for when or whether those will be named, Suzman said.
“I hope the board will be able to allow us to have a more robust internal evaluation and assessment of how and where the strongest interventions for a philanthropy like ours are going to be going forward,” he says.
But he acknowledged that the incoming directors are all members of an elite group of global influencers rather than leaders at the grassroots level.
The main reason the board members were chosen, Suzman says, was that they were familiar with the large philanthropy and its work around the globe and that they could help Gates improve on its core measurement: how many lives it can save and how many opportunities it can provide for a better future.
“That’s our core metric,” he says. “Our core metric is not pleasing a set of external critics.”
Need for ‘Community’ Trustees
Often a family philanthropy adds independent board members who are part of a founding family’s inner circle, like their lawyer or accountant. Having those faces around the board table can provide a neutral point of view during times of family transition, says Nick Tedesco, president of the National Center for Family Philanthropy.
Tedesco, who used to work at Gates, declined to speak specifically about the addition of new board members at the Seattle foundation.
The first outside trustees are a milestone, Tedesco says, but he hopes more philanthropies move beyond family members’ existing network to include “community” board members who are involved in working with people who directly benefit from the grants made by the foundation.
Because donors get a tax benefit from making donations, philanthropic capital is in the “public sphere,” Tedesco says. As such, he adds, “it’s important for philanthropy to have community directors for the purpose of equity to help direct that capital from a place of firsthand experience.”
The expanded board doesn’t signal a commitment to radically transform the Gates Foundation, says Ben Soskis, a philanthropy historian who has received grants from the organization. But it does suggest the foundation is open to responding “within certain bounds” to the criticism it has received.
“It’s a significant event,” he says, “but it will by no means stop that criticism.”
A larger board shunts some of the burden of responding to criticism to the new board members, who have staked their reputations to the foundation’s practices, says Theodore Lechterman, an Oxford University research fellow and author of The Tyranny of Generosity: Why Philanthropy Corrupts Our Politics and How We Can Fix It.
But the addition of the new trustees doesn’t dilute the foundation’s outsize power in a democratic system, he says. Ultimately, he says, a foundation board member’s job is to fulfill the wishes of the founder.
“At most, it’s a very weak concession,” he says.
Carrying Out a Donor’s Intent
Unlike foundations like Carnegie and Rockefeller that have had independent board members for decades who try to make grants in accordance with the founder’s original wishes, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates can make their preferences clear at board meetings. In that way, the living donors can still hold sway over the group even if they serve in the minority on the board.
How a donor’s influence plays out depends on the culture of the board and the willingness of trustees to challenge a founder, says Anne Wallestad, president of BoardSource, an organization that works to strengthen nonprofit leadership and governance.
Wallestad spoke generally about family-foundation board dynamics and did not know about the new Gates board picks.
“One of the key questions that any family philanthropy asks itself is about the role of family at the board level and the extent to which they want to bring in outside perspectives through nonfamily board members,” she says. “When there is a living donor around the board table, the question of donor intent is much less about making an interpretation and more about understanding directly from the donor what their intent is.”
Suzman suggested both Gates and French Gates will make their intent clear.
In their divorce settlement, Gates and French Gates agreed to a two-year trial period for the two to remain together on the board. After that, if Gates and French Gates decide they don’t want to remain co-chairs, French can resign from the board to pursue her own philanthropy.
The trial period has been successful so far, and they to seem to be able to share spots on the board post-marriage, Suzman suggested. Gates and French Gates together held discussions with the incoming board members and have worked together to make other joint announcements by the foundation.
“They are actively engaged every day, every week in the work at the foundation together, he says, adding: “We’re full speed ahead.”
