United States division




Under President Allan Golston, the United States Program has made grants such as the following:

Donation to Planned Parenthoodedit

Up to 2013, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided $71 million to Planned Parenthood and affiliated organizations. In 2014, Melinda Gates has stated that the foundation "has decided not to fund abortion", focusing instead on family planning and contraception in order to avoid conflation of abortion and family planning. In response to questions about this decision, Gates stated in a June 2014 blog post that "she, like everyone else, struggles with the issue" and that "the emotional and personal debate about abortion is threatening to get in the way of the lifesaving consensus regarding basic family planning". Since this time, their endeavors have shifted to a more global perspective, focusing on voluntary family planning and maternal and newborn health.

Librariesedit

In 1997, the charity 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". Only 35% of the world's population has access to the Internet. The foundation has given grants, installed computers and software, and provided training and technical support in partnership with public libraries nationwide in an effort to increase access and knowledge. Helping provide access and training for these resources, this foundation helps move public libraries into the digital age.

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

Educationedit

A key aspect of the Gates Foundation's U.S. efforts involves an overhaul of the country's education policies at both the K-12 and college levels, including support for teacher evaluations and charter schools and opposition to seniority-based layoffs and other aspects of the education system that are typically backed by teachers' unions. It spent $373 million on education in 2009. It has also donated to the two largest national teachers' unions. The foundation was the biggest early backer of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. In October 2017 it was announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would spend more than $1.7 billion over five years to pay for new initiatives in public education.

One of the foundation's goals is to lower poverty by increasing the number of college graduates in the United States, and the organization has funded "Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery" grants to think tanks and advocacy organizations to produce white papers on ideas for changing the current system of federal financial aid for college students, with a goal of increasing graduation rates. One of the ways the foundation has sought to increase the number of college graduates is to get them through college faster, but that idea has received some pushback from organizations of universities and colleges.

As part of its education-related initiatives, the foundation has funded journalists, think tanks, lobbying organizations and governments. Millions of dollars of grants to news organizations have funded reporting on education and higher education, including more than $1.4 million to the Education Writers Association to fund training for journalists who cover education.

Some of the foundation's educational initiatives have included:

  • Gates Cambridge Scholarships: In 2000, the Gates Foundation donated $210 million to help outstanding graduate students from the U.S. and around the world to study at the prestigious University of Cambridge. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship has often been compared to the Rhodes Scholarship given its international scope and substantial endowment, The scholar remains extremely competitive with just 0.3% of applicants being selected. Each year, approximately 100 new graduate students from around the world receive funding to attend Cambridge University. Several buildings at the University of Cambridge also bear the name of William and Melinda Gates after sizable contributions to their construction.
  • Cornell University: Faculty of Computing and Information Science received $25 million from the foundation for a new Information Science building, which will be named the "Bill and Melinda Gates Hall". The total cost of the building is expected to be $60 million. Construction began in March 2012, and officially opened in January 2014.
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Part of the Ray and Maria Stata Center is known as the "Gates Tower" in recognition of partial funding of the building.
  • Carnegie Mellon University: The foundation gave $20 million to the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science for a new Computer Science building called the "Gates Center for Computer Science". It officially opened on September 22, 2009.
  • Smaller schools: The Gates Foundation claims one in five students is unable to read and grasp the contents of what they read, and African American and Latino students are graduating high school with the skills of a middle school student. Gates Foundation has invested more than $250 million in grants to create new small schools, reduce student-to-teacher ratios, and to divide up large high schools through the schools-within-a-school model.
  • D.C. Achievers Scholarships: The Gates Foundation announced March 22, 2007 a $122 million initiative to send hundreds of the District of Columbia's poorest students to college.
  • Gates Millennium Scholars: Administered by the United Negro College Fund, the foundation donated $1.5 billion for scholarships to high achieving minority students.
  • NewSchools Venture Fund: The foundation contributed $30 million to help NewSchools to manage more charter schools, which aim to prepare students in historically underserved areas for college and careers.
  • Strong American Schools: On April 25, 2007, the Gates Foundation joined forces with the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation pledging a joint $60 million to create Strong American Schools, a nonprofit project responsible for running ED in 08, an initiative and information campaign aimed at encouraging 2008 presidential contenders to include education in their campaign policies.
  • Teaching Channel: The Gates Foundation announced in September 2011 a $3.5 million initiative to launch a multi-platform service delivering professional development videos for teachers over the Internet, public television, cable and other digital outlets. To date, over 500,000 teachers and educators have joined the community to share ideas, lesson plans and teaching methods.
  • The Texas High School Project: The project was set out to increase and improve high school graduation rates across Texas. The foundation committed $84.6 million to the project beginning in 2003. The project focuses its efforts on high-need schools and districts statewide, with an emphasis on urban areas and the Texas-Mexico border.
  • University Scholars Program: Donated $20 million in 1998 to endow a scholarship program at Melinda Gates' alma mater, Duke University. The program provides full scholarships to about 10 members of each undergraduate class and one member in each class in each of the professional schools (schools of medicine, business, law, divinity, environment, nursing, and public policy), as well as to students in the Graduate School pursuing doctoral degrees in any discipline. Graduate and professional school scholars serve as mentors to the undergraduate scholars, who are chosen on the basis of financial need and potential for interdisciplinary academic interests. Scholars are chosen each spring from new applicants to Duke University's undergraduate, graduate, and professional school programs. The program features seminars to bring these scholars together for interdisciplinary discussions and an annual spring symposium organized by the scholars.
  • Washington State Achievers Scholarship: The Washington State Achievers program encourages schools to create cultures of high academic achievement while providing scholarship support to select college-bound students.
  • William H. Gates Public Service Law Program: This program awards five full scholarships annually to the University of Washington School of Law. Scholars commit to working in relatively low-paying public service legal positions for at least the first five years following graduation.
  • University of Texas at Austin: $30 million challenge grant to build the Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex.
  • STAND UP: a national campaign that seeks to positively impact the current crisis within the United States public education system by calling upon community leaders, parents, students and citizens to encourage change and STAND UP for better schools and the future of America's children. STAND UP was co-founded by the Eli Broad Foundation, and was launched in April 2006 on The Oprah Winfrey Show in a two-part feature.
  • Alliance for Early Success to support the promotion, education, coordination and alignment of policies which support for vulnerable children ages birth through age eight.
  • Every Student Succeeds Act: donated about $44 million to help with the 2015 federal education law.

Pacific Northwestedit

  • Discovery Institute: Donated $1 million in 2000 to the Discovery Institute and pledged $9.35 million over 10 years in 2003, including $50,000 of Bruce Chapman's $141,000 annual salary. According to a Gates Foundation grant maker, this grant is "exclusive to the Cascadia project" on regional transportation, and it may not be used for the Institute's other activities, including promotion of intelligent design.
  • Rainier Scholars: Donated $1 million.
  • Computer History Museum: Donated $15 million to the museum in October 2005.

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Global health division

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Awards

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