Why we swing for the fences
Reflecting on the first two decades of our foundation

Why we swing for the fences

Twenty years after starting our foundation, we’re just as optimistic about the power of innovation to drive progress.

When we started our foundation 20 years ago, the world was, in many ways, very different from the one we live in now. It was before 9/11, before the Great Recession, and before the rise of social media.

Then, as now, there was no shortage of worthy causes, and there was a good argument to be made for investing in many of them. We’d known for a while that we wanted to give away the majority of our wealth from Microsoft and use it to make people’s lives better. The challenge, of course, was how to do that in a meaningful and high-impact way.

As we were thinking about what our philanthropic priorities would be, we spent a lot of time meeting with experts and poring over reports. What we learned convinced us that the world should be doing more to address the needs of its poorest people. At the core of our foundation’s work is the idea that every person deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life. Twenty years later, despite how much things have changed, that is still our most important driving principle.

There is no question that this new decade is beginning at a time of tremendous unrest and uncertainty around the world. As we write this, we, like many others, are closely following the coronavirus outbreak. But even in a moment as challenging as this one—in fact, especially in a moment like this one—we remain committed to supporting advocates, researchers, government officials, and frontline workers who are making a healthy and productive life possible for more people in more places.

For the last 20 years, our foundation has focused on improving health around the world and strengthening the public education system in the United States because we believe that health and education are key to a healthier, better, and more equal world. Disease is both a symptom and a cause of inequality, while public education is a driver of equality.

We know that philanthropy can never—and should never—take the place of governments or the private sector. We do believe it has a unique role to play in driving progress, though.

At its best, philanthropy takes risks that governments can’t and corporations won’t. Governments need to focus most of their resources on scaling proven solutions.

“At its best, philanthropy takes risks that governments can’t and corporations won’t.”

Businesses have fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders. But foundations like ours have the freedom to test out ideas that might not otherwise get tried, some of which may lead to breakthroughs.

As always, Warren Buffett—a dear friend and longtime source of great advice—put it a little more colorfully. When he donated the bulk of his fortune to our foundation and joined us as a partner in its work, he urged us to “swing for the fences.”

That’s a phrase many Americans will recognize from baseball. When you swing for the fences, you’re putting every ounce of strength into hitting the ball as far as possible. You know that your bat might miss the ball entirely—but that if you succeed in making contact, the rewards can be huge.

That’s how we think about our philanthropy, too. The goal isn’t just incremental progress. It’s to put the full force of our efforts and resources behind the big bets that, if successful, will save and improve lives.

To be clear, the risks we take are different from the ones the true heroes of global progress take all the time: the health workers who brave war zones to get vaccines to children who need them, the teachers who sign up to work in the most challenging schools, the women in the world’s poorest places who stand up against cultural norms and traditions designed to keep them down. What they do requires personal sacrifices we never have to make—and we try to honor them by supporting innovations that might one day make their lives easier.

Altogether, our foundation has spent $53.8 billion over the last 20 years. On the whole, we’re thrilled with what it’s accomplished. But has every dollar we’ve spent had the effect we’ve hoped for? No. We’ve had our share of disappointments, setbacks, and surprises. We think it’s important to be transparent about our failures as well as our successes—and it’s important to share what we’ve learned.

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In this year’s letter, we write about the work we’ve done on health and education and why we think the risks we’ve taken have set us up for future progress. We also write about two issues that have emerged as priorities for us—the climate crisis and gender equality—and how they will factor into our next 20 years.

Read our full annual letter at gatesletter.com.



Prof Guy Van Elsacker DrSc - Biomed Expert

External Consultant at ECDC - European Union

9mo

To whom it may concern. -As the chairperson for the SCITECHMEETS congress in October in Prague Czechia I invite you - on my behalf - the W.E. days before the congress. Attending the congress is NOT a condition - On line attending an option. Best Regards Guy V.E. More details in my personal web: www.science4thefuture.com

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徐善达

建材产品 - 工程销售总监

4y

Hello, friends from all over the world! I have been thinking for a long time and mature new retail projects, now need to find investors and partners. The project can solve the deficiency of the platform such as alibaba, amazon, it can make more close store and factory began to try to do the business again,also can solve that because resources, demand and logistics information asymmetry ,can produce more jobs and can let more people to do what they like and enjoy their life .Friends, please pay attention to me, please spread my needs of this project! A project that will make the world a better place is bound to make its way to the Nasdaq and become a giant unicorn! Please contact me, my email is 2488707496@qq.com, and my phone number is 086 19865857118. I am here waiting for you in the innovative Shenzhen, China, thank you

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Nirmit Shah

Research Scholar | Industrial process Expeditor ITT- Goulds pumps (USA) WFH |

4y

Respected sir we have planning to start codeLab startup for programmer and also for beginners who have enthusiasm for learn coding .we have prototype ready if possible then we are ready to send our ideas.

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Larry Cobby

Security Officer at Mace

4y

Love your efforts daddy

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Javier Molina González

Director en Consultores de Gestión y Reporting SL

4y

Billy in Spain we have discovered that the flu vaccines of the year 2019 were manipulated with an Adjuvant. We will bring the matter to the international criminal court in The Haya. What will Fauci and the media think about this?

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