Purpose of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The purpose of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty globally and to expand educational opportunities and information technology in America.

Everyone has a right to education!

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation follows the belief that every life has equal value. The Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, the Foundation focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, the Foundation seeks to ensure that all people have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in both school and life.

The Foundation was founded in 2000 by Bill and Melinda Gates and is the largest openly operated charitable foundation in the world. It is based in Seattle, Washington and is controlled by three trustees: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has 15 guiding principles that define their charitable work and grant making endeavors. The Foundation's principles are as follows:

1. The Foundation is a family foundation driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family.
2. Philanthropy plays an important but limited role.
3. Science and technology have great potential to improve lives around the world.
4. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are funders and shapers that rely on others to act and implement.
5. Their focus is clear—and limited—and prioritizes some of the most neglected issues.
6. They identify a specific point of intervention and apply their efforts against a theory of change.
7. The Foundation take risks, make big bets, and move with urgency. We are in it for the long haul.
8. They advocate—vigorously but responsibly—in their specific areas of focus.
9. They are humble and mindful in their actions and words and seek and heed the counsel of outside voices.
10. The Foundation treats their grantees as valued partners, and they treat the ultimate beneficiaries of their work with respect.
11. Delivering results with the resources they have been given is of the utmost importance—and they seek and share information about those results.
12. The Foundation demands ethical behavior of ourselves.
13. They treat each other as valued colleagues.
14. Meeting their mission—to increase opportunity and equity for those most in need—requires great stewardship of the money they have available.
15. The Foundation leaves room for growth and change.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has three program areas that it supports: the United States, Global Health and Global Development.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation believes that when all people in the United States have the opportunity to develop their talents that society thrives. The purpose of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the United States is to help ensure greater opportunity for all Americans through the attainment of secondary and postsecondary education with genuine economic value. The Foundation works closely with partners to overcome difficult problems that exist in the United States and focuses on improving public education. Priority areas in the United States include:

• Education
• Libraries
• Pacific Northwest
• Special Initiatives

The purpose of the Global Development Program is to increase opportunities for people in developing countries to overcome hunger and poverty. The Foundation focuses on areas with the potential for high-impact, sustainable solutions that will reach the most people. The Foundation works closely with partners to support innovative approaches and expand existing ones so they reach the people who need them most. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supports policy and advocacy efforts to accelerate progress against the world’s most acute poverty.

The mission of the Global Health Program is ensure that advances in health are created and shared with those who need them most. The Foundation targets diseases and health conditions that cause the greatest illness and death in developing countries. These areas are ones that receive little attention and resources and include:

• Malaria
• Diarrhea
• HIV/AIDS
• Polio
• Pneumonia

For more information, visit the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's website at www.gatesfoundation.org.

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