Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Explained

Last updated: October 26, 2026

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Quick Answer

The Gates Foundation, formerly the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is one of the world’s largest private charitable foundations. Based in Seattle, it was created in 2000 by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, and it funds global health, global development, and education in the United States. Renamed the Gates Foundation in 2025, it now plans to spend about $200 billion over twenty years and close in 2045.

What Is the Gates Foundation?

The Gates Foundation is a private, non-profit foundation that gives grants to other organisations rather than running hospitals or schools itself. Its founding belief is that every person deserves the chance to live a healthy, productive life, no matter where they were born. That idea shapes its funding: vaccines for children in low-income countries, research into diseases drug companies largely ignore, farming tools for smallholder farmers, and better schooling in the United States.

By the end of 2024, its endowment stood at about $77.2 billion, and over its first twenty-five years it had paid out roughly $100 billion. Its budget reached $8.74 billion in 2025, on track for about $9 billion in 2026. It employs over 2,000 people and works with more than 11,750 partners. Its chair is Bill Gates; its chief executive is Mark Suzman.

Note that the foundation is an institution, not a person-pair story. Readers following Bill Gates’s public life may enjoy our article on Bill Gates and Donald Trump: what their meetings were really about.

A Short History of the Foundation

The foundation grew out of two earlier Gates family foundations. Its story, in brief:

  • 1994: The William H. Gates Foundation is created, named after Bill Gates’s father, with an early focus on global health.
  • 1997: The Gates Library Foundation is founded to bring computers and internet access to US public libraries.
  • 1999: The library foundation broadens into education and becomes the Gates Learning Foundation.
  • 2000: The two foundations merge as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with an annual budget of about $1 billion.
  • 2006: Warren Buffett pledges stock then valued at about $31 billion; the foundation reorganises into global health, global development, and US divisions.
  • 2008: Bill Gates leaves day-to-day work at Microsoft to focus on the foundation.
  • 2021: Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates divorce; Warren Buffett resigns as trustee.
  • 2024: Melinda French Gates steps down as co-chair to focus on her own organisation, Pivotal Ventures.
  • 2025: The foundation is renamed the Gates Foundation, marking twenty-five years of giving.

Over that period, the founders gave about $60.2 billion to the foundation, while Warren Buffett contributed about $43.3 billion between 2006 and 2024. Those gifts turned a family project into a global institution.

Why the Name Changed in 2025

Many readers still search for the “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,” and that name remains correct for its history. In 2025, however, the organisation formally shortened its name to the Gates Foundation, following Melinda French Gates’s departure in 2024. The foundation said the new name honoured both her contributions and the legacy of Bill Gates Sr.

The renaming did not change its mission or programmes. It reflected that the foundation is now led by Bill Gates as chair, a board, and its chief executive, rather than by a married couple as co-chairs.

What the Foundation Funds

The foundation organises its work into a few large areas, each answering one question: where can a grant do the most good that markets alone will not do?

  • Global health: Vaccines, malaria and polio programmes, HIV and tuberculosis research, and maternal and child health. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative reports wild poliovirus cases down 99.9 percent since 1988.
  • Global development: Farming, nutrition, clean water and sanitation, and financial services in low- and middle-income countries.
  • Gender equality: Women’s health, economic opportunity, and leadership.
  • United States education: Improving schools and colleges, with a newer interest in artificial intelligence tools for teachers and students.
  • Global policy and advocacy: Turning proven ideas into public policy with governments and international bodies.

About seventy percent of the budget goes to global health and poverty work; the rest supports economic opportunity, including agriculture and US education.

How the Foundation Works

The foundation works through grants, partnerships, and prizes. Grants go to universities, non-profits, and public agencies doing the research or delivery. Partnerships with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and Gavi, the vaccine alliance, let it join programmes no single funder could run alone. Its Grand Challenges initiative invites researchers worldwide to test bold new public-health ideas.

Its headquarters are in Seattle, with offices in Washington, DC, New Delhi, Beijing, London, Abuja, Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Berlin, Dakar, and Nairobi. Staff work closely with the governments and health systems where grants land, and operating costs are capped so most of each year’s budget reaches programmes.

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The Plan to Spend Down by 2045

In May 2025, Bill Gates announced a striking decision: instead of existing forever, the foundation will spend down its endowment and close in 2045. The plan commits roughly $200 billion over that period, roughly doubling its first twenty-five years of spending, to save and improve lives faster rather than preserve the fund indefinitely.

Under the plan, the budget stays near $9 billion a year for five years, then rises toward 2045. Priorities include maternal and child health, polio eradication, and vaccine development. Gates has said much of the remaining spending will go to Africa.

A sunset clause is unusual for a foundation of this size. Instead of preserving its endowment indefinitely, it must choose, year by year, which problems are urgent enough to fund now.

Criticism and Debate

No funder this large escapes debate. Some experts argue that a private foundation holds too much influence over health priorities that should be set democratically by governments and the World Health Organization. Others question whether top-down programmes always fit local needs, or whether its early US education work delivered the hoped-for results, a point its chief executive has acknowledged.

Supporters reply that it funds problems, such as malaria and neglected diseases, that neither markets nor stretched aid budgets cover adequately. Both views can be true at once: remarkable results in disease control, alongside legitimate questions about power and accountability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation still called that?
No. In 2025 it was renamed the Gates Foundation, after Melinda French Gates stepped down as co-chair in 2024. Older sources using the former name mean the same organisation.

Who runs the Gates Foundation now?
Bill Gates is chair, Mark Suzman is chief executive, and a board of trustees oversees it. Melinda French Gates now works through her own organisation, Pivotal Ventures.

What does the Gates Foundation spend its money on?
Mostly global health and poverty programmes: vaccines, polio and malaria work, maternal and child health, agriculture, and US education. Its budget is about $9 billion a year.

Will the Gates Foundation close?
Yes, under its current plan it will spend down its endowment and close in 2045, after committing about $200 billion over twenty years.

Faizi is a content writer at AllAboutFacts (hotteamnames.com), covering vocabulary, language tips, and everyday explainers.