Talk:Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Influence in the media

This article [1] is a significant study on the influence of this Foundation on influential sections of the media. Could it be quoted to present a more balanced picture? 117.204.137.243 (talk) 22:58, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

confusing section

"..."Buffett's gift came with three conditions for the Gates foundation: Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active in its administration; it must continue to qualify as a charity; and each year it must give away an amount equal to the previous year's Berkshire gift, plus another 5 percent of net assets. Buffett gave the foundation two years to abide by the third requirement...."

This sounds to me at least as though the award is closer to tripled by Buffett's terms - not doubled as it says elsewhere in the article.

Perhaps the reference to doubling should be changed, or perhaps this section needs clarification.

Perhaps what is confusing is the fact that Warren Buffett is giving the foundation $2,543,677,886,656,543,434,212,128 billion a year, and then the foundation gives this money as an award.

How about. Each year the foundation must give the full $5,656,998,763,267,688,097,665,544 billion dollar Berkshire gift plus ...

Then the doubling section makes sense.

~~BMIKESCI

my apology

Ok, I found something, and if it's true, I admit to being completely wrong in my cynicism. I found the following:

"BILL GATES HAS SAID THAT WHEN AN AIDS VACCINE IS produced, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will fund the vaccine’s distribution around the world even if the foundation has to spend down its $24 billion endowment."

I found this in the following:

http://www.law.umich.edu/CentersAndPrograms/olin/papers/Fall%202003/klausner1.pdf

The paper in PDF form I found is by Michael Klausner and is called "when time isn't money"

If this is true, if it is in the foundations charter, then I must be wrong about the Gates motivation in building the largest foundation for the sake of power and pride.

I think this quote, if correct, should be included in the article. It says a lot about the nature of the Gateses.

Once again, I apologize for being so cynical and unfair.

24.206.125.213 07:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

Microrate

I couldn't find anything in the Gates Foundation article on the topic of Microrate:

http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/2014.html

This looks like a good project.

24.206.125.213 04:02, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

Parish & Company - Bill Parish

I found an interesting article on use of the Microsoft Foundation to buy defense and media stocks to put pressure on these companies to buy software:

http://www.billparish.com/20040223persforeigngatesfoundation.html

I don't know anything about Bill Parish, except was the website says. Is this guy a reputable source? If so, this article might be used as a source for the possible misuse of the power of the foundation.

24.206.125.213 03:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

I don't really see where that article states that the Gates Foundation is using its shareholder status to put pressure on companies to buy software. It says that it -can- do that. However, I also did not see a list of companies where the Gates Foundation is a >10% shareholder, which would be the minimum that I would think would be required to "get things done". (For example, Kirk Kerkorian's investment vehicle, Tracinda, had to acquire a 10% stake in General Motors to install a board member and change corporate policy.) Furthermore, Microsoft has a market capitalization of over $230 billion, so I'm not sure how the Gates Foundation selling its shares, even if it was the whole $20+ billion endowment, would leave shareholders/employees with worthless, inflated stock. (I'm not trying to shoot down your comment, I'm just debating it.)JD79 22:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate the information. Do you happen to know where to get the last published portfolio of Gates Foundatiom? I think it would go a long way to settling any doubts I have.

24.206.125.213 04:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

This link takes you to the financial info section of the Gates Foundation's website. For specific holding info you'll want the 2004 Form 990-PF, Schedules N, O, P. (The 2005 990-PF, if extended, isn't due until 11/15/06 for calendar year NPOs.) Be forewarned that this is an 80MB PDF file. This page also includes audited financials. JD79 17:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I know the above discussion is 4 years old, but...

Bill Parish posted a widely-read article claiming Microsoft was a giant pyramid scheme based on share options, at http://billparish.com./msftfraudfacts.html. I was looking it over and tried to find the Economist article referenced in the The Economist Story Legitimizes My Study section. What I found at economist.com is http://www.webcitation.org/5vfNjXc2w this] article: The trouble with share options, marked Aug 5th 1999, was on cover of the Aug 7-13 issue. The reference doesn't exactly check out; there's no mention of Microsoft...in that article... but I looked further and found the article Parish meant: [2] via [3], also marked Aug 5th 1999, and I verified that the claims in the article do check out when THAT article is referenced.

transparently operated

Does someone know where to find the foundation's last published investment portfolio so that it can be anylized for ethical investment practices?

24.206.125.213 03:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

See my link above. JD79 17:54, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Americans - born with a silver knife in our backs

Currently per capita GDP is $42,000 per year as per the cia's web site. That means that every year Americans produce $42,000 in new goods and services for every american man, woman, and child. Canada has per capita GDP of $34,000 per the cia's website. Nevertheless 88.4% of children in america in 2002 were without any health insurance (http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/healthins.htm). Canada has universal health insurance. How can these charitable organizations claim to be a boon to humanity when in reality they shelter money from taxes so that American children must go without health insurance?

BTW a family of four produces 168,000 worth of GDP, but the median before tax household income is $40,000. After tax it is much much lower. I guess that a hard working family of four is getting about 1/8th GDP. But the good news is that there are more billionaires in america then ever before.

In order to make this article NPOV instead of public relations hype, don't we need to point these kinds of facts out?

I believe your information on the number of uninsured children is inaccurate. Government sources indicate that the number of uninsured children was less than 10 percent at some points in 2002. (http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2002pres/20021231.html) (Ardievu 09:04, 27 June 2006 (UTC))

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The numbers I quoted are from the U.S. Census. They are usually pretty good at counting. I think the Health and Human Services people work for the office of the President. They may have a political reason for counting differently.

Actually, the numbers you quote are from an About.com guide quoting the U.S. Census, who does appear to be quoting it inaccurately.

Not only do the quoted numbers disagree with the 2002 Census report dealing with this topic (http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-223.pdf) and related census publications (http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html), but it is contradicted several times in the article itself, as when the percentage of children covered by emploment-based or privately insured plans vs. Medicare is discussed. Additionally, the number of uninsured U.S. children, as cited in the article, is considerably higher than the total number of uninsured in the U.S., as cited in the article. (Ardievu 07:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC))

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Yes Health and Human Services is a cabinet level position. I have as much faith in their accuracy as I have in FEMA.

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I would agree that America is screwed up socially I have no idea what any of this has to do with the foundation or for that matter Bill Gates Nil Einne 15:58, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that wealthy people and corporations do anything they can to not to pay taxes. Therefore the federal and state budgets don't have the funds for programs like healthcare. Charity is wonderful, but if we as a nation, did what we should do, we wouldn't need handouts. Unfortunately, the people with the power to make changes lobby to make billionaires instead of a fair system. Look at companies like Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. They have policies that disallow the top earners to make more than a certain percentage of the lowest paid employee. They, and I consider this an important ethical principle. So, once again, why can a country with a fraction of our GDP have national healthcare, and we can't. I think it is because they have ethical leaders and we do not. If the Gates want to show real leadership, they should work toward real fairness. It seems to me that there is just too much of having their cake and eating it too. They have so much power to effect the world negatively, but if they put a good face on it everyone says they are wonderful. I don't think that great wealth is good for the country. Monopolies are a bad thing no matter how much good press can be obtained. And corporations and the wealthy should pay large amounts of taxes so we can at least have the standard of living that they have in Canada. Great wealth can be like a cholesteral clot in the economic system. It strangles innovation. competition, and if unchecked can distroy a system. Look back to the great depression. This country used taxes and public works to breath life back into a dying system. Of course, we have a fiat economy now, but unchecked accumulation of wealth can lead to similar problems or inflation.

Therefore I think that this article needs to show some of the possible downsides of being the largest, wealthiest, foundation ini order to be NPOV.

How we accomplish this in this article while remaining fair will not be easy. That is why I have started this conversation in this discussion area- to get multiple points of view.

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Maintaining an NPOV does not mean criticizing every article for its minor place in a systemic problem. I think you're going to have a heard time pushing (what appears to be) a socialist/redistributionist agenda in article about how one of the wealthiest men ever decided to do every thing he could to help the Third World. Also SIGN YOUR COMMENTS... JD79 23:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Irrespective of its political tilt, ANY political advocacy or disparaging comments about specific nations in an article's Talk page is entirely out of place. Talk pages are for exchanging information about the articles to which they are attached, with the specific objective of improving the article.

The OP says

"Therefore I think that this article needs to show some of the possible downsides of being the largest, wealthiest, foundation ini order to be NPOV. How we accomplish this in this article while remaining fair will not be easy. That is why I have started this conversation in this discussion area- to get multiple points of view."

But any such discussion would necessarily be [{WP:OR]] and cannot be used to support a statement in a wikipedia article.

The way to accomplish what the OP seems to want is to locate commentary in good secondary sources which makes those points in a way relevant to the subject of our article. There's no objection to doing that if the statements can be cited in our article here with due weight. --loupgarous (talk) 00:50, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Giving the minimum

I found the following statistics on the Foundation's website:

Statistics*

Number of employees: 241 Endowment: $29.2 billion Total grant commitments since inception: $10.5 billion Total 2005 grant payments: $1.36 billion

If the foundation gave 1.36 billion and had 29.2 billion in assets, by my math that means they gave 4.657% to charity. I'm guessing that the foundations endowment was less at the beginning of the year; so the foundation gave around the minimum 5% needed to maintain its tax exempt status. Shouldn't the article point this out?

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If I understand this, it's worse on second glance. Below is the foundation timeline taken directly from the Foundation's website. It shows that less than 5% of the foundtion's endowent has been given as new grants awarded each year. unless some grants are ongoing year to year and so not counted, awards seem to be under the required 5%. See below:

Foundation Timeline

2006 The foundation reorganizes into three program areas—Global Development, Global Health, and U.S. Programs—and a core-operations group.

Endowment: $29.2 billion New grants awarded: $325.4 million (through 3/31/06)

2005 Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and foundation CEO Patty Stonesifer announce that the foundation will build new headquarters on land near the city's landmark Space Needle. The foundation plans to move into its new campus in the winter of 2010.

Endowment: $29.2 billion New grants awarded: $1.6 billion

2004 Endowment: $28.8 billion New grants awarded: $1.5 billion

2003 Endowment: $26.8 billion New grants awarded: $1.1 billion

2002 Endowment: $24.1 billion New grants awarded: $1 billion

2001 Endowment: $23.3 billion New grants awarded: $748.5 million

2000 The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation merges with the Gates Learning Foundation. The goal of the merger is to increase efficiency and communication between four main initiatives: Global Health, Education, Libraries, and Pacific Northwest. Patty Stonesifer and William H. Gates Sr. serve as the foundation’s co-chairs.

Endowment: $21.1 billion New grants awarded: $1.3 billion

1999 With a broadening commitment to education, the Gates Library Foundation becomes the Gates Learning Foundation. The William H. Gates Foundation is renamed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill and Melinda Gates contribute nearly $16 billion to the foundations, which move from offices in Bill Gates Sr.’s basement to a new facility in Seattle.

Endowment (foundations combined): $16.9 billion New grants awarded (foundations combined): $2.5 billion

1998 Endowments William H. Gates Foundation: $312.4 million (as of 3/31/98) Gates Learning Foundation: $265.2 million (as of 7/31/98) Combined new grants awarded: $252.5 million

1997 Bill and Melinda Gates launch the Gates Library Foundation to bring computers and Internet access to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada. Former Microsoft executive Patty Stonesifer takes on the foundation’s leadership. The William H. Gates Foundation continues as a separate entity.

Endowments William H. Gates Foundation: $296.6 million (as of 3/31/97) Gates Learning Foundation: $1.4 million (as of 7/31/97) Combined new grants awarded: $35.4 million

1996 Endowment: $191 million (as of 3/31/96) New grants awarded: $14.6 million

1995 Endowment: $107.3 million (as of 3/31/95) New grants awarded: $28.8 million

1994 After years of contributing to charitable causes, Bill and Melinda Gates consolidate their giving to address two main initiatives: Global Health and community needs in the Pacific Northwest. Bill’s father, William H. Gates Sr., agrees to manage the new William H. Gates Foundation, formed in December 1994 with an initial stock gift of about $94 million.

Note: Endowment figures includes total assets

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Not sure where this "5%" number is coming from. It's a lot more complex than that when you look at how a private foundation retains its tax-exempt status. Also, something for the naysayers in this thread talking about Gates escaping taxes, private foundations still must usually pay a ~1% excise tax on their investment profits. JD79 15:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

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The 5% figure comes directly from this article. Please read it.

I did read it; I am challenging it and requesting that someone elaborate. There should be a Wikipedia Rule that one must assume that other users are at least mildly intelligent.

Sorry, I see what you mean. I don't know the law in detail either. Based on the fact that the amounts given (mostly) are less than 5%, you are probably right and the law is different. I'll try to have thicker skin and be more thoughtful nexttime.

24.206.125.213 01:22, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

Also, please sign your comments. JD79 20:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

1%! Wow how can I get that rate for my taxes! Can I set myself up as a charitable foundation, give away 5% a year to the gates foundation, pay a 1% tax, and build a fabulous campus full of servants all tax free:-)

You seem to be misunderstanding the 5%. The 5% is the amount the foundation has to give away each year (actually according to the above it's more complex then that). Note that Bill Gates himself still pays whatever taxes he owes on his personal wealth which probably isn't much since I suspect he's using numerous tricks to avoid paying tax as do most of the wealthy (although the foundation isn't one of those tricks). Nil Einne 15:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The idea of only giving around 5% per year is that you want to be able to spend $1.5 B per year in perpetuity. Reasonably conservative investing will get you around 5% return on investment, so that's how much you give. If you give away more money than you make in interest, eventually you run out of money to give away, so it's really all about sustainability. 68.43.57.118 04:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Charity Rating Foundation

I could not find a rating for this charity from the American Institute of Philanthropy. Has any external charity watchdog reviewed the books of this charity?

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How were monies sheltered

Did Bill Gates donate dollars or shares? If shares were donated - as is the case with the Berkshire H. shares, doesn't that mean that no tax would be paid to the US government, the shares could be sold to diversify the total assests controlled by the Gates without tax consequences, future profits would be free of taxes, and the world's richest man would still control the worlds wealthiest foundation?

This is basically correct. When one donates an appreciated capital asset to a NPO then the donor is allowed to take a tax deduction for the fair market value and the recipient then holds the asset at this stepped-up basis. Of course when the foundation sells the asset it (usually) will not be paying any tax because it is tax-exempt. I'm not really sure what you're getting at with your comment...you seem to be implying that Bill Gates is somehow "avoiding" tax, but if he did not sell the shares and personally see the cash proceeds, then he did not actually receive any money (an "accession to wealth" in tax parlance), and therefore has nothing that can/should be taxed. The "future profits" (do you mean dividends?) would be flowing to the NPO, not to Gates, and the fact that he controls the "wealthiest foundation" is not really relevant because he does not personally profit it from it in his duties as a trustee. (He may take a director's/trustee's salary from the Foundation, but I highly doubt it.) (Really, a lot of this goes back to valuing someone based on their "paper" worth vs. their actual "cash" worth.) JD79 15:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

But he does profit from it. From the minute he walks in the door of his new fabulous campus, an army of servants see to his every wish. No doubt transportation and all travelling expenses for him and others will be at the foundation's expense.

Besides, isn't it all about being the biggest? If this is a way to accumulate more, as is suggested about IKEA in the link given by this article

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6919139

Then, don't you think Bill Gates is smart enough to figure this out. If he gave away enough, so that the foundation wasn't the wealthies, most powerful, etc. Then I might start to believe that it can be taken at face value. He does, however, seem to be giving just the minimum. Just as Warren Buffett seems to be giving the minimum of 5% per year as per this article. I don't see how the inequities of poverty can be addressed when these foundations seem to be a way to create greater inequities by sheltering money from the distributive effect of taxes. 5% doesn't even cover the vig the credit card companies charge.

Hi, whatever your opinions on Bill Gates and the foundation, the fact remains the foundation is intrinsicly different from the Ikea/INKGA case. They operate under a different set of laws. It's quite clear that most of the money the foundation makes goes to charity purposes. While you could argue that Bill Gates benefits from the foundation via the clout, power and perks he receives, it's not anywhere like the INKGA case. Also, be aware that if the foundation wants to last, it has to control the rate it gives away. If it gives away 100% of it's assets, the foundation will be bankcrupt unless someone puts more money in. Bill Gates' networth is currently going down so eventually he is going to run out of money if he keeps giving it away. Also the Warren Buffet case is different. AFAIK, after 2 years, ALL the money he puts in has to be donated/given away. The charity is NOT going to get much (any?) richer via Warren Buffet. Nil Einne 15:46, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Thank you for replying. I thought (possibly naively) that giving away mony was the idea in a charitable foundation and "not running out" the idea in a shelter. If it is a gift to those who need it, then give it where it is needed. If it's all about being the biggest, then hord it and watch it grow.

24.206.125.213 01:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

You are correct but at the same time confused. The idea of a charitable foundation is to help people which indeed includes giving out money. This doesn't mean it makes for a foundation to give all it's money away in one go. Since there is not an endless supply of money, if a foundation gives all it's money away then there is no more money and it can no longer help people. For you perhaps it's a good idea for a foundation to only help people once, for a lot of other people it makes sense if a foundation tried to help people for a long time. As it stands, under the law the foundation perates it has to give away 5% of it's assets which means that without investment or additional funding, the foundation will eventually run out of money. Nil Einne (talk) 08:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

AOL Time Warner are strategic partners with Microsoft

Should the article mention that Time magazine is owned by one of Microsoft's strategic partners?

No, because that fact is not directly relevant to our article "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation". Microsoft's current business activity and any "strategic partnerships" it has do not impact the Gates Foundation's activities directly, and any indirect effect from those partnerships would have to be mentioned in a reliable secondary source before we could consider mentioning it in our article. --loupgarous (talk) 14:25, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Breakout what goes in and what goes out

This article would be much better if it differentiated what monies were transferred from Mr. Gate's before tax income into the charity and what monies were spent from that charity on charitable work. A further breakdown of what monies spent from the charity went to recipients as opposed to intermediaries would also give greater clarity.

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Investment

Is this charity currently investing its assests in a socially conscious manner?

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I found an article on Warren Buffett in the Financial Times. In it Bill Gates makes the following statement when asked about ethical investment:

"dismissing a question on Monday about the need for ethical investment. “You need to seek out people with a talent to distribute money in the same way as you do for those to accumulate it,” he said."

I don't understand what he means here. Is he saying that it is alright to exploit people and the planet?"

Does he suggest that the best way to run the plantation is a tough overseer who shows results?\

I think something about this should be added to the article, but I don't want to get it wrong. Has anyone else seen similar quotes? I just can't believe that this isn't some sort of mistake or misquote.

Here's a link:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a8ce47ae-05fb-11db-9dde-0000779e2340.html

24.206.125.213 03:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

Sorry, my mistake. This is a quote from Warren Buffett. It is still disturbing however.

24.206.125.213 03:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

I found that in 2004 large holdings were in Exxon Mobile. Here;s a little bit of information on Exxon

ANWR driller, Nigerian Environmental Damage, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, refuses to pay EV spill damages, no responsibility taken for spill, 1990 Staten Island oil spill, Clean Air Act violations, toxic dumping suit, human rights violations, Chad pipeline, MM's 10 Worst List (x4), MM's Top 100 Corp Criminals (#5), HRC Equality Laggard, Greenpeace Boycott, Corporate Responsibility Intl Boycott, Sierra Club Boycott, Top 25 Superfund Polluters, Only Top 50 company to discriminate based on sexuality, evidence of political manipulation, responsible for 5% of all global greenhouse gases, Indonesian human rights abuses, New York toxic dumping, Louisiana radioactive waste suit, MTBE lawsusit, Kazakhstan toxic sulphur suit, Louisiana air pollution suit, Califronia oil spill, silenced shareholder resolutions, price-gouging suit, deceptive practices suit, Alabama fraud suit, Angola "Arms For Oil" scandal, Foreign bribery charges, highest emissions in the industry, Australian safety suit, Canadian sour gas death suits, Top 10 Greenwashers

BTW, I would push my car for mile to avoid buying gas and supporting these people.

Please don't fund via investment the company that Money Magazine calls their top 100 Corporate Criminals

Since This is an open transparent foundation, where can one find the lists of companie the Foundation invest in?

If the foundation lends via credit cards, I hope it is humane and follows the old usery laws and tries to have those laws reenacted for fairness sake. After all, we put the Mob in jail for too high interest rate and penalties. Banks and credit car companies need to be controlled to. So if the foundation does lend any of your billions through banks and credit cards, please don't put the screws on too tight.

Does the foundation have holdings in gambling operations like investment firms or vegas? Does it invest in local farming - not as a grant but as loans? Local farming is important. Americans grow far too many ornimental plants. Then we need to import food from out of the country. For example, in vietnam, many people are starving becaue rice paddies have been converted to shrimp farms. All the shrimp is sent to America, and the vietnamese no longer have the rice crop they need to survive. Therefore, it is important to maximize local production so we do'nt take too much from the third world. This becomes even more important now when a large part of the corn crop may be taken away from being food to make ethenol. More may starve when this happens

Has the foundation considered investing in low income housing - perhaps with President Carter's group?

I hope that I am 100% wrong, and that Mr. Gates is the next Mother Teresa, but I'm from missouri as the saying goes. If I am wrong, I also promise to apologize in any reasonable way suggested by the foundation. But until then, I have very grave doubts. And also in the spirit of being fair. I think he has chosen admirable projects.

According to a recent investigative story by the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines) the Gates Foundation has made some questionable investments that run opposite to the foundation goals - including worst pollutant companies as well as pharmaceuticals that "price drugs beyond the reach of AIDS patients the foundation is trying to treat." Aquawarlock 18:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the links to secondary sources which could be cited in a section on public reactions to the Foundation's investment portfolio. But the lengthy discussion which went with it questioning the ethics of that portfoio seems to push a POV. It's legitimate to invite us to consider a section on our article dealing with the investment ethics of our subject. Statements about how bad some of the companies held in the Gates Foundation's stock portfolio are not WP:VERIFIABLE and not helpful in making an encyclopedia unless they are confined to statements made in verifiable sources. --loupgarous (talk) 14:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Consumption

I think that charity has to be looked at from two sides: How much does a man give and how much does he take? Is a man generous if it really costs him nothing? For example, Mr. Gates has enourmous amounts of personal real estate. He must have rooms in his house that he never uses. How can this sort of consumption be justified when so many are so many homeless?

I found this text in an article printed in the Seattle Times:

...Over the past decade, Bill Gates has quietly bought up 11 properties, including nine houses, that surround his 5-acre Medina estate, creating a buffer zone that is increasingly turning a small hillside neighborhood into a private holding of the richest man on Earth. Enormous houses—dubbed "megamansions"—are nothing new to Medina, including Gates' 48,000-square-foot spread, which he moved into in 1997. But this is the first evidence of one of the town's many industry magnates actually buying portions of a neighborhood. ...

This over consumption might easily be seen as greed gone rampant. It seems to me that a further analysis of the foundation should be considered before naming Mr. Gates "man of the year." How many people have been disposessed by market changes due to the acquisition of these properties - either directly or indirectly? How many acres of rain forest or similar ecosystems were pillaged to make his 48,000 squarefoot palace? How many employees maintain the status quo rather than producing food?

Additionally, if all moneys donated are sheltered from paying any taxes, and if only 5% of these funds must be spent yearly to maintain the charitable status, isn't it the case that Mr. Gates is able to keep much more of his assets under his control through this charity? How many tax dollars do the people of this country lose each year because of tax shelters for wealthy charities? Wouldn't these monies be spent on social programs, etc. if paid into the government? How many fancy offices are maintained by this charity? How many friends and relatives of the Gate's have high paying jobs in the foundation?

I have seen too much in my life to believe without more evidence that this charity is so right.

Should I add a consumption section in to keep this article NPOV?

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nah.

-- Please reply seriously or not at all

That material doesn't really belong in the article on the Foundation. Information about Gates' consumption might go in his personal entry, if anywhere. -- pde 14:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

You appear to be confusing several things. Whatever Bill Gates may have done with properties around his house, he almost definitely didn't do it with the foundation but with his own money. Therefore bringing it into the discussion is completely missing the point and suggests you are simply pushing a POV. And as people have told you numerous times, while Bill Gates does have control over what the foundation does, he is limited by law as to what he can do, and he can't generally use the money to benefit him. In any case, you appear to be more generally criticising charities then having any reliably sourced criticism of the B&MG Foundation. If you have a beef with charities as a tax shelter for the rich then you should take that to the charity page and not here. Nil Einne (talk) 08:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

OP, this article is about the Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation. It is not about the Gates family's lifestyle at all, and your remarks about their consumption are irrelevant to their charitable foundation's history or current activity. Please confine your remarks in this talk page to ways to improve our article's coverage of the Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation with information from verifiable secondary sources. While your views on consumption may or may not be of use in other articles, they don't conform to the project's WP:NPOV ethic when applied to this article. --loupgarous (talk) 14:51, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Question

I was very interested to read how the Gates foundation wants to help high school students. Is the Gates foundation working to put curricula on the web? I have been following MIT's commitment to open courseware for the improvement of educational methods and open access to first class materials. It is fascinating to me that with the billion dollar budgets of the various states' departments of education, the federal department of education, all the charitable foundations that focus on education, etc, only the corporation for public broadcasting, the Annenberg CPB (www.learner.org) and the opencourseware offerings fom MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and some few others, have put open access videos of mathematics lectures on the web. Is the Gates foundation currently working to put high quality video lectures for high school mathematics on the web? Does the Gates Foundation or Microsoft donate high bandwidth server space to teachers who would videotape their lectures for high school students? It amazes me, that there does not seem to be a single governmental or charitable organization currently offering a series of calculus lectures online. The closest I can find is the Carnegie Mellon Applet based Calculus I course.

How is it possible that the Gates Foundation that owes its existence to Microsoft's domination of distributed technology has not joined the crusade to open education and provide students, communities, and the world the materials needed to obtain a basic education?

I have found a large number of lecture videos being served by Microsoft, but they do not seem to be targeted to junior and senior high school students.

It is a wonderful thing that Nobel prize winner's lectures are freely available in abundance on the internet, but basic education is not offered in an intelligent systemized manner.

As a result, there are many many companies like Neil Bush's Ignite Learning cashing in on the United States' failure to distribute high quality lectures, applets, and textbooks. Other countries seem to be doing a much better job. Consider Irelands skoool.ie and the BBC's asguru online programs.

These seem to be cost effective programs available globally. These programs even offer homework assistance via chat.

I believe this article would be much more interesting and helpful, if any of these kinds of activities could be pointed out. That is, if the Gates Foundation is actually active in this kind of educational assistance. I did have a look at their web site. Like the various DOE websites, there are nice pictures and text about how they are helping students, but I can never seem to find links to material that is actually helpful and usable. For example, where should a student go who is having trouble? To whom should he or she talk? Is there a chat site? What governmental agencies are available that actually help? What should a troubled student expect if he or she contacts a particular agency? Will he or she get help or the run around?

== Question: How much did bill gates donate in total? 20 billion

If Bill Gates sheltered 20 billion and the charity is currently worth 27 billion, how much could this foundation have given to the needy? What percentage per year has spent on actual charity?

OP, answering your last question first, other editors in this Talk page have cited secondary sources which show the Bill & Melissa Gates Foundation gives amounts which are about equal to what its investments earn - a pattern of investment-supported charitable giving that can be sustained indefinitely.

When discussing specific ways in which the Foundation's investment income are spent, the single most useful thing you can do is search for reports in reliable secondary sources about whether and in what specific ways the Foundation supports Web-based curricula (to use the specific example you ask about). Those sources are what we would need to cite in answering the questions you raise in a verifiable way we can use in our article. --loupgarous (talk) 15:08, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

My question is how much will Melissa&Bill Gates will donate in these coming years? Lihlombe (talk) 21:16, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Language

• "Is the world's largest charitable foundation" in terms of WHAT? Assets? Endowments? Donations? Flunkies? - Jerryseinfeld 18:01, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The foundation made total grant donations of US£3 million to various charities to help with the aid effort for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake.

US dollar or UK pound? There is no compromise. Tomtomtomtomtom 03:02, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

US pounds... didn't you hear at some point of time while everyone was sleeping the American Government what the courntcy to pounds and then back to dollars within 0.0000001 seconds. 220.233.48.200 11:02, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

When was the Foundation founded?

Please see my comment on the Bill Gates discussion page. --Haruo 06:23, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

On the same note: "In June 1999, Gates and his wife donated US$5 billion to the foundation" is confusing since the article says the foundation was established in 2000 ... 203.59.198.126 17:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

Hi, I have added some info to the article, I have refractoried it a bit, and have uploaded an image.

I have a bullet list in the top of the article, I'd like it to have an infobox along with the image, but have no idea how to make an easy one.... thanks —Mineralè 2006-06-20 04:04Z

You would use {{Infobox Company}}. An example of where it is used is at Autodesk. Or if you don't want to do it yourself ask me on my talk page :-) --Commander Keane 04:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Can someone add something about the billions to plaedge to the foundation by Warren Buffet today? 6.23.06

I would like to see two bits of information: 1.) How much tax money was sheltered by this? Are the funds going to remain in the current preferred stock?

A corollary to this would be: Are these funds going to be invested in a socially responsible manner?

Points about Ikea comparison, Buffet donation

Here are two key paragraphs I introduced:

• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest transparently-operated charitable foundation in the world. It was founded by Bill Gates, and as of 2006 it has an endowment of approximately $27 billion; based on one estimate by The Economist, this is second only to Stichting INGKA Foundation in valuation, though the Gates Foundation "wins hands down" when "measured by good works."

This paragraph attempts to highlight key findings from the Economist story about the foundation established by the IKEA founder. The lack of transparency for the INGKA Foundation and its acknowledged lack of emphasis on what the magazine calls "good works" led to the language I chose. More details about this comparison could merit a section of its own if someone wanted to do so, but such details don't belong in the introduction.

• In June 2006, Warren Buffett announced plans to set aside 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares for Gates Foundation contributions, worth approximately US$30 billion at the time of the announcement. The Gates Foundation will receive 5% (500,000) of the shares in 2006, and will receive 5% of the remaining earmarked shares each year (475,000 in 2007, 451,250 in 2008, and so on).

Class B shares as of the announcement are worth about 30.7 billion. Note that the shares really are being donated with the idea of being spent right away, and thus they don't affect the valuation comparison vis-a-vis INGKA Foundation. They do very much affect the "good works" that Gates Foundation will continue to emphasize. Note also the number of shares declines each year.

66.167.136.215 06:25, 26 June 2006 (UTC).

I'm sure you've read the Economist article if you're bringing up Stichting INGKA but if you draw any comparisons between it and the Gates Foundation it is absolutely essentially that you include the part of the article where it discusses the extemely twisted accounting/governance issues of Stichting INGKA. After reading that article Stichting INGKA appears to be nothing more than a tax shelter due to the various tax-shelter jurisdictions that it winds its way through. Compare this to the Gates Foundation where, contrary to what some people are saying on this Talk page, the assets are truly out of Gates' personal control (in that he cannot benefit from them directly). JD79 15:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

---

What does it mean "out of his control" Isn't he on the board? Doesn't he have something to say about how the foundation uses its funds, where they are invested, and who benefits from salaries, benefits, and awards? In fact, isn't he leaving Microsoft to run the foundation? Please explain how these funds are out of his control.

Thank you .....

I think what was mention is he can't use them for his direct personal gain. For example, whatever control he may have of the foundation, he couldn't AFAIK get the foundation to upgrade his extremely large house. Nor could he use the foundation's money for his daily life if he bet's all his money on England winning the world and loses. Etc etc Nil Einne 16:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, Nil Einne. Gates may control the Foundation, but it's not as if he can use it as his own personal pocketbook. He does not have a "pecuniary interest" to once again use financial lingo; if the Gates Foundation were to dissolve tomorrow, the billions would not be allowed to go back to Bill Gates without being heavily taxed. He could vote himself a large salary as an officer of the Gates Foundation, but this could cause a problem with the tax-exempt status. Also, to the person above, please sign your comments. JD79 20:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

--- Please take a look at the Bill Parish reference in the discussion. The article (link included) suggests that Bill Gates can use the foundation's money to become a major shareholder in companies to influence their software purchases, etc.

24.206.125.213 04:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

Yes he potentially could. But that's quite different from what you were originally talking about. In any case, the key point is that you need references. You can talk as much as you want about how evil Bill Gates and the Foundation is, but unless you have reliable sources then it doesn't belong in the article. Indeed you appear to be soapboxing rather then having anything serious to add to the article so people would be entitled to remove your comments if they were to continue Nil Einne (talk) 08:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Request

I was looking for the 'Gates Award for Global Health' which was awarded to the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research ref, could some info about that be added here? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 13:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms (Diversity Section)

The Gates Millennium Scholars fund, according to its official website's frequently asked questions section, only provides scholarships to African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Pacific Islander American or Hispanic American applicants.[7] Because the program focuses on racial and ethnic minorities, it has been criticized for excluding Caucasians.However, such grant programs are argued to be necessary to counteract more broadly occurring trends of systemic racism. Says who? Who argues that reverse racism is neccessary to combat other types of racism. Certainly not anyone who is against ALL forms of racism like myself. I will remove "However, such grant programs are argued to be necessary to counteract more broadly occurring trends of systemic racism." unless anyone object in 5 business days. 66.31.222.89peterp

That shouldn't be removed at all. The paragraph is already misleading to me in the sense that it implies that there is widespread criticism of the scholarship program with regards to its minority-focus approach but there's only the single op-ed by Ernest W. Lefever. I've searched some more online and the only other critical piece was by a very clear biased source; if anything general consensus is positive towards the program.

I think the paragraph doesn't represent a substantial enough of an argument and should be removed but won't unilaterally delete it without additional agreement. However in lieu of that I definitely oppose the removal of the only counteracting statement in that unsupported paragraph and also put forward that instead of "it has been criticized" it should change to indicate the sole provided source such as "Ernest W. Lefever in his op-d piece criticizes...". To clarify the isolated nature of the criticism so as not to give the impression that it is a wide-consensus.--Artificialard 03:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Also please sign your comments as a newbie like myself can't easily determine date/user from your comments without the "--" signature

I just checked the history and 66.31.222.89's complaint was actually posted on Feb. 19th, 2007. I'd like to delete the Criticisms (Diversity) section given it's lack of general consensus unless someone would like to discuss was sources - I'll do the same "5 business days".--Artificialard 03:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The section on diversity is far too long in relation to both the section on criticism as well as the overall article. By citing a whole paragraph from the op-ed, the criticism is both long winded and too strident for this section. At most, it should be summarized. I'm hoping that somebody can either delete or shorten this paragraph.99th Percentile (talk) 22:52, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I strongly agree with every suggestion here except the first one (the anti-affirmative action fellow). In addition, the criticisms Lefever makes toward Gates' scholarship program could be made about any minority scholarship program, which suggests to me that they're even less notable. Balonkey (talk) 02:52, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

It would help of Lefever's well known bias was noted in the same place, so readers can see that this is the opinion of a man who's own brother has stated that he believed "blacks were genetically inferior". EasyTarget (talk) 11:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Endowment

The endowment in the infobox and the figure on the first page to not corroborate [[TheAngriestPharmacist]] 03:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

US Libraries under "Criticisms"??

"U.S. Libraries

In 1997, the foundation introduced a U.S. Libraries initiative with a goal of “ensuring that if you can get to a public library, you can reach the Internet.” The foundation has given grants, installed computers and software, and provided training and technical support in partnership with public libraries nationwide.

Most recently, the foundation gave a $12.2-million grant to the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET) to assist libraries on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, many of which were damaged or destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita."

___________________________________

How is this a criticism? Moving to another section.... Bovester 15:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Most recently, the foundation gave a $12.2-million grant to the Southeastern Library Network (Bangladesh) to assist libraries on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, many of which were damaged or destroyed by Hurricanes

Rayhynifad (bkash) 103.153.230.173 (talk) 23:47, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - Grants (sample list)

Grant Size	Use	Time Frame	Link
US$33.3 million	Decrease hunger - Mexico	October 2007	http://www.gatesfoundation.org/GlobalDevelopment/Agriculture/Grants/Grant-45783_01.htm
US$13.1 million	R&D water quality test University of Bristol	October 2007	http://www.gatesfoundation.org/GlobalDevelopment/SpecialInitiatives/WSH/Grants/Grant-48599.htm
US$2 million	Support a capital campaign - Woodland Park Zoo	October 2007	http://www.gatesfoundation.org/UnitedStates/SpecialInitiatives/Grants/Grant-48373.htm
US$250 thousand	Support an endowment - St. Mary's Dominican High School	October 2007	http://www.gatesfoundation.org/UnitedStates/SpecialInitiatives/Grants/Grant-48840.htm
US$50 thousand	Discuss HIV/AIDS	January 2007	http://www.gatesfoundation.org/GlobalHealth/OtherInitiatives/Advocacy/Grants/Grant-47038.htm

table by Kigali1, merged from deleted article ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 18:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Section Support for Slum Dwellers International

I deleted this section has all sources are blogs, making it hard to assess how notable this criticism is. Furthermore the section is quite biased, asserting that the South African government is a repressive government and that institutions like the World Bank or USAID pursue anti-poor policies (sic!). If someone has reputable sources for the criticism feel free to re-add, but some random blogs don't do it. Dassiebtekreuz (talk) 06:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Ties to Planned Parenthood

I removed POV (abortion industry, relatively substantial) to conform with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view in general and WP:UNDUEWEIGHT in particular.--Svetovid (talk) 08:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

So does the Gates foundation have ties to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.23.86.169 (talk) 23:05, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia discussion boards are not forum for discussion what an organization does or does not do. If you would like to edit an article based on reliable sources, then be bold and start! Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:17, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The Independent has this article which says the gates foundation will be donating £360 million to birth control in developing countries. It didn't mention abortion, but birth control. EdwardLane (talk) 08:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The following article [4] reports on the Gates Foundation being involved in promoting abortion. Is this a reliable source? --Rprpr (talk) 16:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

It is a reliable source for presenting the perspective of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, which I believe is a notable perspective worthy of inclusion. I would not say that it is a reliable source for reporting how the Gates Foundation operates, but I do think it is representative of how a significantly large demographic views the work of the Gates Foundation. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Fourth Largest?

I realize that Stichting INGKA is the largest "foundation", but who are two and three? How is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation number four?!

There are good arguments that Stichting INGKA is not a charitable foundation, but I realize that is arguable, however they are *not* "transparent". That much is certainly true. So, really the Gates Foundation should be number one. If one asserts that Stichting INGKA is number one, then Gates is number two. Why is it called the "fourth-largest"? Supertheman ^(talk) 13:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia lists it as number one: List of wealthiest charitable foundations. What gives here? Supertheman ^(talk) 13:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

there is a bit of mention of philanthropy here

is it still philanthropy if one is only nice to some charities, and deforming to others? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevecam (talk • contribs) 13:47, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

philanthropy

there is a bit of mention of philanthropy here

is it still philanthropy if one is only nice to some charities, and deforming to others? --Steve (talk) 13:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "deforming" ? Smartse (talk) 16:24, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

"Philanthropy plays an important but limited role."[5] // Liftarn (talk) 18:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Agricultural Development Inaccuracies

I work for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Development Program and I want to highlight some inaccuracies in a recent edit (7 September 2009 (UTC)) to the Agricultural Development section:

"A preference for the foundation is to make grants which benefit multinational agribusiness, such as Monsanto, which do not take into account many local needs in Africa."

We believe that this phrase would fit better in the “criticisms” section. If not, it could be edited for accuracy.

Here is some more information for you to consider regarding the foundation's grantees:

• Our grants fund a breadth of solutions—from investing in improved seeds and healthy soil to supporting effective farm management practices and expanding small farmers’ access to markets.(http://www.gatesfoundation.org/agriculturaldevelopment/Documents/agricultural-development-strategy-overview.pdf) The vast majority of the foundation’s grantees are NGOs and public entities. (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants/Pages/search.aspx) Obstacles to agricultural development span sectors; so do their solutions. We seek to partner with organizations in the public and private sectors—foundations, governments, NGOs, and businesses—that can help revitalize agriculture for small farmers in the developing world.
• The “uniquely African Green Revolution,” called for by African leaders in 2004 (http://www.africangreenrevolution.com/en/green_revolution/addis_call_to_action/call_to_action/index.html), recognizes reducing hunger and poverty begins with small farmers and their families. We are working with our partners to listen to farmers to ensure their voices are heard and their needs are met. Ultimately, it will be up to countries and farmers to decide what approaches are right for them.

--Bmgf (talk) 23:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Please Explain

On June 25, 2006, Warren Buffett (then the world's richest person, estimated worth of US$62 billion as of April 16, 2008)

I don't understand why two different years have been mentioned here. It appears to say Warren Buffet was the richest person in 2006, which is wrong according to List of billionaires (2006). However, he was in 2008 according to List of billionaires (2008)

Is this confusing, or am I just not thinking logically?

Does Bill Gates secretly use vaccines to stop population growth in Africa?

Is this website reputable? Does Bill Gates secretly use vaccines to stop population growth in Africa? http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://newzz.in.ua/main/1148840009-uiljam-jengdal-bill-gejjts-o-vakcine-dlja.html&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhjMvq0AcZYls2B_aF8pBO5MtFpezA My knowledge of Russian and Russian media is not good enough to assess the reputability of the website. Thanks in advance. Andries (talk) 14:34, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. I cut the following WP:FRINGE paragraph and ref from the end of the lead:

Stating that the global population was heading towards 9 billion, Gates said, “If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 per cent.”Bill Gates Ted Talk

The YouTube poster misinterprets Gates' poorly phrased statement that better vaccines, healthcare, and family planning would reduce the anticipated population growth in poor countries to mean that Gates hopes that vaccines kill off a billion people. A long list of commenters pile on. (I thought that only CP/M geeks hated Gates this much.)--Hjal (talk) 03:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Thx for your reply. I agree. Somebody else told me it was reputable. Andries (talk) 08:02, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

criticism

The Criticism section talks about Gates's concept of "creative capitalism." How is that a criticism? Is Gates criticizing his own charity? 24.24.232.140 (talk) 02:36, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

You are correct: the section is very unclear. The wording "manipulates the ideas" is nonsense. Quite a bit of the criticism section may be original research and possibly should be removed (if adequate secondary sources are not found). Johnuniq (talk) 03:16, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it looked OR when I read it, and needs rewriting and a proper reference.. but noting that the foundation has a different philosophy from many other charities and demands something in return for it's largesse is a valid point; Gates himself describes this (check the reference) and it should be in the article. And yes.. it is a demand, if you cannot cannot put back something material yourself, you must publicly acknowledge this as an act of Gates's charity, if you do neither you get nothing. That's actually quite insulting to the people who practice genuine charity; where the gift is given even if unacknowledged (and sometimes unwanted or unneeded.. but that is another topic), and the only demand made is (usually) a lack of violence or aggression towards the giver, or maybe a prayer.. EasyTarget (talk) 11:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

It is very likely that many charities have no long-term beneficial effect on the targeted local population. At any rate, enormous efforts of charity have often failed to provide an environment where the targeted population is capable of existing without charity. A new approach is needed if charity is ever to be effective. Gates is not suggesting that companies get a return on their charity "investment" simply to benefit the companies: the suggestion is an attempt to mobilize sufficient resources so that an actual long-term benefit to the targeted populations would occur. To attract serious business involvement, you need to speak business language. The speech given by Gates outlined some thoughts on how a wide range of businesses might be motivated to become involved in serious development projects; the speech is not a statement of how his Foundation operates. That is, an attempt to use parts of the speech to criticize the Foundation (in this article) is doubly misguided. Johnuniq (talk) 12:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Gates Center for Computer Science

The article speaks of the center as something that will be built in the future. The building is already open for business. Will update article with more current info.Ds1GIG (talk) 05:57, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Showing examples of some of the approaches of the Gates Foundation and not simply the dollars spent

For example, I'm planning to add a summary of this:
Public-Private Partnership Announces Immediate 40 Percent Cost Reduction for Rapid TB Test, press release reprinted by WHO, Aug. 6, 2012.

And we currently include:
"Next Generation Condom
"The foundation is offering $100,000 to the scientist who can develop a new and improved condom,[39] one that "significantly preserves or enhances pleasure, in order to improve uptake and regular use" according to the Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health website. . . "

Which I think is good. It shows an approach used by the Foundation and not just the dollars spent. Cool Nerd (talk) 18:01, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

This is great. This organization does a lot of amazing work and there are lots of problems with this article in communicating its projects to others. I actually wish that this page could be a model for how other organizations should communicate their own projects. What you did is how this article should be. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:13, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the very nice compliment. :>) And I think it's just in the course of trying to do a straightforward, non-fancy job. And being open to references which address the first question, Well, what does the Gates Foundation do?

And personally, yes, I think the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does a lot of good by focusing on diseases which, given the number of people affected, have been relatively neglected. I also think human sexuality should be accepted as a natural part of life in a way which is both pro-sex and pro-respect. I think a lot of different things. But . . . whereas we can discuss stuff freely here, for article itself I want to go with information we have from what are hopefully a variety of good references (and so far on this one, admittedly, I just have the one source). Cool Nerd (talk) 20:04, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I added:
The Stop TB Partnership, which operates through a secretariat hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, with WHO also as a leading partner. Published evidence and commentary on the Xpert MTB/RIF assay, a PDF file containing 11 pages of published studies and commentary, updated April 5, 2013.

WHO is a leader partner. Well, WHO is a major player and is involved in a lot of organizations. All the same, maybe not quite as independent as we would like. But just too good a list of references to pass up.

I AM NOT A DOCTOR. Actually, my background is in retail sales and retail management. But I am interested in issues of public health. Cool Nerd (talk) 15:28, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

If you want company, go to the talk page Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine. The board is super active with non-doctors who are interested in health and especially public health. The WHO reference is great; I know they are partners in this but still they are a good source. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:42, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the lead. :~D And yes, I think the WHO reference is great, too. I'm just open to extra additional references if we come across them. Cool Nerd (talk) 22:22, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Lifespan

According to Bill Gates the lifespan has been reduced to 20 years. I don't know how to properly quote this but you can see him say that at 33:50 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBHJ-8Bch4E — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.97.170.171 (talk) 22:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

In this talk Bill Gates says that the Gates Foundation will complete winding down no later than 20 years after both he and Melinda have died. The Gates Foundation will not exist after that point. This could be cited. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust Investments

Any opinioins on the recent edits (diff) which added an investments section listing some information (mostly unsourced) about six companies? It does not seem helpful to me—I imagine the Foundation has hundreds more investments, and listing them would require a lot of work and would be pointless. Selecting a few to list is very much original research—we would need a secondary source highlighting some investments with some specific commentary showing why they are generally significant. I'm thinking the new section should be removed. Johnuniq (talk) 04:40, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Billion

The word billion in : "It had an endowment of US$38.3 billion as of 30 June 2013 (...)", links to 10 to the power 8. A billion means 10 to the power 9, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000,000,000. There is something wrong here and this should be changed. I don't know whether the number that was meant was 10 to the power 8 or to the power 9). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abenthy (talk • contribs) 2014-11-16T17:48:01 (UTC)

Thanks, I fixed that. Johnuniq (talk) 00:22, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

145.228.61.5

On a tangent, how does "Under President Allan Golston, the United States Program has made grants such as the following: De-funding abortion" make sense? -- 145.228.61.5 (talk) 13:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Section on Global special initiatives (sanitation) needs some work

This section needs some work. It is digressing too much describing the problems caused by lack of sanitation (which can be found elsewhere on Wikipedia, add links to sanitation, open defecation and JMP reports) but should rather focus on the grants to the foundation makes in that area of sanitation. Some stuff was added there but it is outdated. Also need to think about whether it makes sense to single out one particular RTTC grant (Uni of Colorado) when there are so many others. When I get around to it, I plan to make some improvements there. EvM-Susana (talk) 22:44, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I have now gone ahead and restructured this section. I have reduced the information about the sanitation crisis in general, gave detailed information about the different technology research funding schemes, added references, added new images, added additional examples. Please let me know if anything is unclear or needs changing. Also if you have more references to add, please do. I am wondering if more project examples shoudl be cited or if it's enough - like I have done now - to provide the references where more projects are described. There are plenty more newspaper articles which could be cited but I am not sure if it's worth doing so.EvM-Susana (talk) 21:26, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

EvM-Susana I do not think it would be a worthwhile use of time to cite more newspaper articles for more perspectives. Enough information is here. I see that you had one idea for the design of this section in March, then you revised in this month removing the examples section and integrating the content into more of a narrative. I regret that there was no narrative from which you could report, and that you had to do this piecewise. Still, it works well enough, and I expect in coming years some researcher will review and online the impacts of all these projects.

It is kind of surprising that the Gates Foundation does not provide more media to encourage storytelling, but when I checked out their work maybe 3 years ago, it was the same way then.

Thanks for making all these things. They are an improvement in clarity, references, and trimming extraneous information. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:03, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Source for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust Investments?

Where is the cited source for the data given under "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust Investments"? No source and date is given. I noticed it because someone added a recent article in the Guardian as a source of figures for shares in BP and Shell (not sure if a newspaper article is such a reliable source for that?). Therefore we should also cite where the other figures in that section came from.EvM-Susana (talk) 07:26, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

The newspaper at least establishes that the figure is worth reporting, whereas if the figure where pulled from an organization's own published report, then there would be ambiguity about whether there was some bias in presenting that information when foundations' investments are rarely reported on Wikipedia.

For whatever reason, a lot of users fail to provide citations when they make lists. Here are the edits which added this information. It came from an IP user who did not cite a source. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:10, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 7 external links on Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20150423110945/http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/philanthropy_individual.html to http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/philanthropy_individual.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120111164923/http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9101858&intsrc=news_ts_head to http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9101858&intsrc=news_ts_head
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080414095646/http://www.polioeradication.org/content/general/HistContributionWebMay06.pdf to http://www.polioeradication.org/content/general/HistContributionWebMay06.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20150509054021/http://www.gates.scholarships.cam.ac.uk/ to http://www.gates.scholarships.cam.ac.uk/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20121129050721/http://www.gatesfoundation.org:80/Grants-2011/Pages/The-Teaching-Channel-OPP1040433.aspx to http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2011/Pages/The-Teaching-Channel-OPP1040433.aspx
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New table about funds for grants

Thanks a lot, user:Riceissa for adding the table with the funds of the grants to the article! This is an interesting table. I hope all the figures are correct! You have given the source, so I guess anyone could double check. I wonder about the figure given for sanitation. Some time ago, myself and a colleague did the sums for their grants in the area of water, sanitation and hygiene and then added this sentence to the article "For the time period of about 2008 to mid 2015, all grants awarded to water, sanitation and hygiene projects totaled a value of around US$ 650 million, according to the publicly available grant database. (source: "How We Work - Grantmaking". Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved 6 April 2014.) This is more than the figure in your table. Can we explain this discrepancy? Is it because of the "water" part? Also, what is hidden under "other" in the column with sectors? These are huge amounts for "other"??EvMsmile (talk) 07:59, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

User:EvMsmile thanks for the interest. There are three sources of discrepancy I can think of. (1) Regarding the sectors, I used the IATI definition. In addition to "Basic sanitation", the IATI also defines a sector named "Basic drinking water supply and basic sanitation", whose description states "When components are known, they should individually be reported under their respective purpose codes: water supply [14031], sanitation [14032], and hygiene [12261]." I suspect this is where most of the discrepancy comes from (though I haven't had a chance to verify), and that if we sum all of "Basic drinking water supply", "Basic sanitation", hygiene (called "Health education" in IATI parlance), and "Basic drinking water supply and basic sanitation", we would obtain a similar figure to the one you cited. (2) In addition, it seems you summed from 2008 to mid-2015, whereas my sum is 2009 to 2015, so that could introduce additional differences. (3) The grants database on the Gates Foundation website might cover a different subset of grants than those listed in their IATI publications.

As for the "Other", the reason this is so large is that I chose to only display the top 15 sectors individually. As you can see from the list of sectors linked above, there are a lot of IATI-defined sectors, and I didn't want to overwhelm readers by listing too many. There is also the question of why the 2011 and 2015 "Other" sums are so large; I think this is mostly because these two years had large grants labeled "Sectors not specified" (which I haven't fully investigated). Cheers. Riceissa (talk) 00:25, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Here are additional tables that may interest you: 2008-2015 Gates Foundation IATI Committed funding by sector and 2009-2015 Gates Foundation IATI Committed funding by sector. Adding together the sectors I mentioned in my previous post in the 2008-2015 table, I obtain $523.4 million. Riceissa (talk) 00:19, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

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Removing Bias and Adding Alternative Perspectives to Strengthen Overall Argument

This article is fairly biased. Upon initially skimming the piece to see the broader topics that were to be discussed, I immediately noticed that there is no “controversy” section, which is normally included in a politically-charged article such as this one. I thus began a more in-depth read, searching for any opposition arguments or alternative perspectives provided within the article. I came across one line that stated that “the foundation itself notes that the philanthropic role has limitations” and a citation at the end. I followed the link provided and found it led me to the home page of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s official website. This attempt at providing a more critical evaluation of the foundation was delegitimized by the clearly biased use of citation. Further into the article, a paragraph discussed a 2011 survey of grantees that found many believed there was a lack of transparency in the foundation’s goals and strategies, and that its communications could be improved upon. The author’s only discussion of this critique was that the foundation’s response was to improve upon these problem areas, and that they launched a podcast series to do so. Although this inclusion of critique makes for a stronger article, the lack of unbiased perception throughout weakens the general arguments being made.

The article is thus missing a stronger counter-argument or alternative perspective. For example, while Bill and Melinda Gates have won countless awards for their fight to eradicating some of the world’s deadliest issues, their foundation is currently subject to an international investigation. Rather than being a “neutral charitable strategy”, the Foundation is focused on promoting big business, its ultimate influence dangerously skewing aid urgencies. According to the Wikipedia article itself, the organizations that the Foundation gives most funding to are mostly giant corporations such as UNICEF HQ, WTO, Invitational Food Policy Research Institution, and so on. The article also states the great influence that the Foundation has in aiding the Green Revolution, specifically investing $100 million in the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, while failing to mention the problematic nature of the movement and the resulting consequences. I believe that the article would be much stronger and more reliable if it were to include some of the key contestations that many have with the Gates Foundation.

Nicolelaporte (talk) 23:03, 24 September 2016 (UTC)Nicole LaPorte

Sounds interesting. Can you add relevant paragraphs with reputably sources backing up any statements? I would be interested to read such a balanced and well-referenced section. EvMsmile (talk) 15:30, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

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Spelling out Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation?

Someone recently changed on this page the "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" to "Gates Foundation". I am thinking of changing it back to its official title which is actually "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" (or using the "and" instead of the ampersand if people prefer). Does anyone have any objections against that? EvMsmile (talk) 21:47, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I have added the long name in a few places (but not everywhere). EvMsmile (talk) 22:46, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

If you go to https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ then you can see an image on top left stating "Bill & Melinda Gates foundation", so I think this is the official name. We'd only know if we would look at the official filing of the foundation (paperwork). I think part of the confusion is actually that the homepage is on "https://www.gatesfoundation.org/" which only mentions "gates"; but the full name is indeed the longer variant, and I think the longer variant should be used, or if abbreviated, I'd use B&M Gates foundation or BMG foundation or something like that. The ampersand is indeed annoying, I always have to find it on the keyboard ... 2A02:8388:1641:8380:3AD5:47FF:FE18:CC7F (talk) 19:06, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Yea, good points. But if we use the abbreviation it should be BMGF, as that's how they normally abbreviate it. EMsmile (talk) 05:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Non-neutrality and criticism section

I added the non-neutrality tag because the article has a poorly written criticism section (which is artificially inflated by using too many subheadings; subheadings should probably not be used if you only have one or two sentences of content). The sources in the section are poor, including websites like Buzzfeed. There's no "praise" or "impacts" section to balance it out, despite Gates being considered by many to be a very successful foundation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.210.42.90 (talk • contribs) 22:22, 18 December 2014

More detail is needed to justify a drive-by tag and I have removed it for now. The solution to a poorly written section is to improve it. I am inclined to agree with your view that the "Criticism and controversies" section needs severe pruning because it is probably just the result of people adding their favorite gossip-of-the-day. How about identifying the subsection with the weakest sources and we might start with that. Johnuniq (talk) 22:58, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the neutrality tag on this article because that section is completely one-sided, spinning things that the average observer would say are just facts into criticisms with their own sub-heading. I'm going to try to clean it up. -- 02:09, 22 December 2014 (UTC) Gloriamarie

Please do (that is, please fix the text; we don't a need a tag because no one is objecting to a cleanup). All I've been doing here is making sure the most outrageous nonsense is reverted. I'm pretty confident that reading the criticism section would show that most of it could be removed as WP:UNDUE. Johnuniq (talk) 04:35, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I just did - some of most egregious criticism was not supported at all by the citations given, so I removed those. I moved much of the criticism to the relevant sections of the article and included accomplishments of the foundation to balance it out - there are still too many paragraphs that start with "critics say," but I don't have time right now to look through every citation. It's better, anyway. - Gloriamarie (talk) 05:18, 22 December 2014 (UTC) Gloriamarie

Thanks, that is much better. I noticed that the para starting "A 2011 survey of grantees found" in the History section (moved from criticism) might need to be elsewhere. And there is still confusion over trivia like title casing: "Global Development Division" vs. "Global health division". Johnuniq (talk) 06:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree with the edit. While I am all for a balanced view, I cannot help but feel that this edit is effectively hiding the criticism of the foundation behind a wall of details about individual grants and projects. Criticism of the foundation is not circumstantial; I can imagine a good percentage of readers coming here explicitly looking for that particular subject. -- 145.228.61.5 (talk) 13:00, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree, I came back to this article after some time to now find it's been basically whitewashed of quite a lot of valid criticisms that were backed up with appropriate sources. This article seems like it was subjected to too much astroturfing and public relations people and is now mostly an advertisement for the foundation instead of a truthful, encyclopedic article. Seeing this with a lot of articles on Wikipedia over the last few years. Public relations puppets are winning. What a shame.Cowicide (talk) 11:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Same here: I was very surprised to find that the article does not have a "criticism" section, and I think that that detracts from a NPOV. (However I agree with Gloriamarie et al that not just any unsubstantial mudslinging comment should be included.)

I read through the old criticism section in the history, and got the impression that one main point sticks out: The question whether "charity" or "philanthropy" means helping any cause which current general morality wants to see supported, or how much control the founders may exert on where their money goes. Giving the Gates' the benefit of the doubt, that the goal of their foundation is really to improve society and shape a better future, it seems to me that they like to support specific programmes or agendas which they feel sympathetic towards. Criticism seems to mainly revolve around whether those programmes are really the right way towards a better future. (K-12, agribusiness, no abortion, ...)

tl;dr: At the least I'd like to see a bit in the lede saying that the stuff that is sponsored by BMGF often is controversial in the general public. --BjKa (talk) 14:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I see both points of the argument and I think it is good that the various "criticism sentences" are now added in the respective sub-headings of the article (since December 2014). Nevertheless perhaps we still need a short stand-alone criticism section to summarize the key issues; and perhaps a sentence in the lead would indeed be warranted again just trying to summarise what the main points of contention might be. I am sure these things are not unique to this particular charity anyhow, so it would be worded in a neutral and objective way. We could perhaps look at how it was done for other major charity pages and get inspired in that way. EvMsmile (talk) 21:58, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

If the topic is notable, there should be a stand-alone article. This article is not available as a coat rack for WP:UNDUE cherry-picked "criticism". Johnuniq (talk) 23:47, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't understand your reasoning User:Johnuniq. Are you saying one would need to create a separate article called "Criticisms regarding the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation"?? Do you have examples of other organisations where it was done like this? Perhaps the term criticisms is anyway not so good. A better option for a section heading might be controversies or challenges. See for example how it's done here for the Carter Centre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Center#Controversy or here for Oxfam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxfam#Criticism . And what makes you think the examples would be "cherry picked"? My idea was to simply collect the most important broad issues and then we could also provide information on how the BMGF has tried to address those or how they have responded. Don't get me wrong I am not intending to list every single bit of criticism ever raised here. But just to give some general information. After all, isn't that was a balanced encyclopedic entry is all about (and sets it apart from just repeating what is on their website)? Oh and another example is here on the page of Cochrane Reviews where they have called it "reception": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochrane_(organisation)#Reception EvMsmile (talk) 11:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Cherry picking is where editors comb the internet for negative statements and add them with no regard to overall context. What should happen is that someone with an interest in the topic (that is, the Foundation, not criticism of the Foundation) would find some reliable secondary sources that discuss the topic (the Foundation, not criticism of the Foundation) and provides balanced summaries. Some of the Foundation's projects will work and some won't; some will have positive side effects and some won't. You might like to try some edits and see what response there is. Johnuniq (talk) 23:23, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good. I have just deleted one sentence of criticism that had no reference to go with it. Note that there are many sentences in the article that start with "Critics say"; it would be good if this could be improved to make it more like flowing text (or consider moving some of that into a new section, like I had proposed, if the sources of those statements are reliable secondary sources (I haven't had time to check through each of them yet; my guess is that most of them are just newspaper articles which are not super reliable). EvMsmile (talk) 13:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your latest edit which removed an unreferenced opinion. If a good source for a comment like could be found it could be rephrased without the "critics allege" nonsense—just state whatever facts are known. Johnuniq (talk) 01:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

"Sponsored editing vs Paid editing" What kind of banner if any should be used?

So after seeing a suggestion about https://vipulnaik.com/sponsored-wikipedia-editing/ in the Signpost suggestions, and seeing how this article was edited by at least one "sponsored" editor, I wanted to ask, A banner? COI? ....the thing is that we would NOT want to say that it is a self-dealing COI, (like spamvertising), but it surely is teetering on "astroturf" and or WP:SPA? So how and should there be labels/banners for this work? JFTR, I am not anti-paid-editing, but I am interested that our readers are informed about paid edits and in general I am HIGHLY interested in full disclosure for "paid for messages" especially where political and charitable astroturf is concerned.TeeVeeed (talk) 18:14, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

It's really not clear what you are referring to since this article isn't mentioned on that link at all. Looking around though are you referring to edits by Vipul? They made a grand total of two edits to the article in 2012, neither of which are even slightly controversial. SmartSE (talk) 18:40, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Ah ok now I see. One of the users listed here presumably edited the page. Which one? SmartSE (talk) 18:47, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Well I don't want to get into any kind of witch hunt here because I am not saying that anyone did anything "wrong". Just the fact as stated, that it appears that at least one sponsored editor has edited this article or a SPA. To be truthful, I don't even know for sure if this article was on the "bounty" list for sponsored/paid edits, I'm mainly looking for some discussion about what do we say to our readers when sponsored/paid editors edit articles? EX:--a "normal" COI would imply that the paid edit was generated by the topic of the article. That would NOT be the case with a sponsored/paid edit, so one-should there be notification in article-space, and two which should it be so-as NOT to give an impression that the topic itself COI-edited or sponsored such edits?TeeVeeed (talk) 19:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)edit spelling TeeVeeed (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

{{coi}} should only be used when there is a problem with article content, not to simply notify the reader that someone with a COI edited it. {{Connected contributor}} can be used on talk pages but that doesn't quite fit these edits since they aren't connected nor are they conflicted. Unless there is a problem with this article, this should be discussed at WT:COI. SmartSE (talk) 23:42, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Please focus on article content. Are any problems known? Is anyone (paid or not) editing this article in an unhelpful manner? If there are no known problems, there is no reason to start a discussion. Johnuniq (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you that is exactly what I was looking for. COI when the article is possibly or is COI and then Talk Page for basically a notice--(if there does not appear to be a problem).TeeVeeed (talk) 01:39, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

class sizes

The article says that the Foundation promotes greater class sizes, and also that it spends money of reducing student-to-teacher ratios. This appears to be inconsistent. Is one of the statements incorrect? Lavateraguy (talk) 14:02, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

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Article is being used to support spam

Wikipedia should stop permitting the use of articles to support spam. I'll repeat the usual suggestion (so it can be ignored again). There should be an easy way to report such spam and flag the articles with anti-spammer warnings. In this case, linked to an article explaining the details of 419 scams. Even beyond the abuse of Wikipedia's reputation to give credibility to their cock-and-bull scams, the scammers may be motivated to actively vandalize some of the articles if they can add plausible details for their lies. "Live and let spam" is a bad philosophy, but I think it's even better if you have a better solution approach. Shanen (talk) 07:58, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

You would need to explain what you are talking about, with a brief example. Do you have any reason to believe whatever the problem is occurs often? Johnuniq (talk) 08:28, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Patents

Right now the article isn't quite critical. Does it hold any patents? If so it would be nice to mention this on the main page OR link in an additional article as-is.

Also I remember the outrage about this foundation was high a few years ago. There is also no mention on investment into e. g. MediaNews Group or Warren Buffet giving money to the foundation either. Right now the article is too uncritical as-is. It's ok to not have this all on the main page, but then there should be a separate article. Perhaps even link in to it from the "criticism" part, because right now that seems sooooooo brief that it is almost suspicious. 2A02:8388:1641:8380:3AD5:47FF:FE18:CC7F (talk) 19:03, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

@2A02:8388:1641:8380:3AD5:47FF:FE18:CC7F: Would you mind providing a reliable source that backs up your claim about Warren Buffet? What are your other suggestions on improving this article? X-Editor (talk) 19:55, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Include criticism

I agree with including some more criticism, especially since this happened during the pandemic. https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bukovles (talk • contribs) 09:24, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

This is already included in the article, using that exact reference. Kuru (talk) 14:01, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Bill Gates’ media influence

Columbia Journalism Review made a great article about Gates’ influence on the media that I think should be incorporated into this article [6]. X-Editor (talk) 19:51, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Phishing scam notice

A user has recently added a 'Warning: phishing scam' template twice to this article. I have removed it. The only source for the statement that 'Some scammers are even mentioning a link to this Wikipedia article in order to appear more legitimate.' is a forum post. We don't consider forum posts reliable for content inclusion, and I question whether they should be usable for such a template. Without a statement from the WMF that this is a significant concern, or other, recent coverage in WP:RS, this tag has no place on this article.Dialectric (talk) 12:33, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

@Magnovvig and Dialectric: Is there any reason that it is better to remove the phishing warning instead of keeping it? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation&oldid=prev&diff=1017754463

I don't think so, it only makes the scam more successful. Wikipedia should not let scammers make a phishing attack more legitimate by hiding the warning. Hiding the warning is only beneficial to scammers. I suggest to restore my edit ASAP because a lot of people could trust the scam if the warning is not present.

For information, I also received the scam by email, so I can confirm that the forum post is reliable. Even the website of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is talking about scams so this reason should be enough to keep the warning. --Baptx (talk) 15:24, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Divorce

There have been many edits relating to the divorce relating to the foundation.

I think some variant of this quote from this AP news article should be incorporated after the first paragraph "Bill and Melinda Gates said Monday that they are divorcing but would keep working together at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest charitable foundations in the world."

References

Confusing sentence in History section

On 12 May 2008 it was announced that Raikes would replace Patty Stonesifer as the CEO of the BMGF.

Who is Raikes? They aren't mentioned (or Wikilinked) anywhere earlier in the article, and so the reader is left wondering who/what this is. Perhaps someone with more knowledge could fix this with their full name (with a Wikilink if they have an article). MrAureliusR_Talk! 15:52, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Oddment in current second sentence ...

... which provides as support for the statement of being the second most capitalized non profit financial statements of novo nordisk which is not a non profit foundation. In fact apparently it is the largest non-profit. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 18:37, 21 November 2021 (UTC)