Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to receive $20 Billion from namesake

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will receive a donation of $20 billion from Bill Gates as the philanthropic organisation is looking to increase its pace of distribution.

Gates, the fourth-richest person in the world said in a statement on Wednesday, "I hope by giving more, we can mitigate some of the suffering people are facing right now and help fulfill the foundation's vision to give every person the chance to live a healthy and productive life."

The statement said that the foundation has set a new goal of distributing annually an amount of $9 billion, to be accomplished by the year 2026. This new goal will be a 50% increase from the current rate of distribution. The latest donation made by Gates will bring the total endowment of the foundation to nearly $70 billion.

The namesake of the foundation had committed a combined amount of $15 billion to the organisation that is based in Seattle, after their tumultuous divorce last year. The recent contribution by Gates will completely cover their committed amount, Bloomberg reported.

A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation, Kate Davidson said in an email, "Since then, both co-chairs have made significant contributions toward the pledge". She did not mention a dollar amount in her statement.

Last year, at the time of the divorce, they had also announced that if the pair could not work together, Melinda French may step down as Gates's co-chair and trustee. If she leaves, 57-year-old French Gates will receive money from Gates for her philanthropic work, which is separate from the foundation's endowment.

Billions of dollars of stock in the companies have already been transferred by Bill Gates, 66 to French Gates, who has built her own philanthropic investment firm called Pivotal Ventures.

But Davidson clarified that French Gates had no plans of stepping aside yet.

"Bill and Melinda are fully committed to continuing to work constructively together at the foundation to advance its program and policy objectives," she said.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp., Bill Gates is worth $113.7 billion, while French Gates has a fortune worth $10.3 billion.

Another post-divorce promise was fulfilled by the couple as the foundation expanded its board of trustees this year. Four members were added to the board including the organization's chief executive officer, a Zimbabwean billionaire, a nonprofit consultant and a baroness.

A small circle of friends and family previously sat on the board, including Gates' father, who died in 2020, and Warren Buffett, who donated more than $35 billion, including $3.1 billion in June to the charity. Buffett, 91, stepped down after Gates and French Gates parted ways.

Employing nearly 1,800 people and spending close to $80 billion since 2000, the Gates Foundation has long been a powerhouse in the nonprofit world. It was overtaken as the country's largest grantmaker by a donor-advised fund provider, Fidelity Charitable in 2019. At the time, both made less than $5 billion in annual gifts.

Even if the $9 billion annual goal is met, the Gates Foundation may still not outpace Fidelity which has benefitted from a recent rise in the use of donor-advised funds, or DAFs. Fidelity was able to distribute more than $10 billion in gifts in 2021.