Bill Gates, 67, begins his most recent annual letter with what might be a tacit admission that his giving is no longer the hottest new thing. “It’s hard to believe I’m that old,” he writes. “In America, most people my age are retired!”
The soon-to-be grandfather then exercises a well-worn prerogative among the older set: the right to balk at change. The Gates Foundation, he says, will continue pursuing its overall goal of “help[ing] people in poor countries who shouldn’t die, not die.” And it’ll do so by marshaling the same strategies it’s leaned into for the past two decades — working with global partners to deploy life-saving innovations in a mostly top-down, expert-driven, capital-friendly way.
It’s not that Gates philanthropy isn’t changing at all. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen some pretty seismic shifts in Gatesland, including Bill and Melinda’s divorce, Warren Buffett’s departure as a trustee, the subsequent installation of a new board of trustees (now numbering eight), and, most recently, news that the scale of Gates’ gargantuan giving project will continue to grow even as its timeframe quickens.
But those changes don’t really speak to the challenge posed by MacKenzie Scott’s very different approach to giving at a massive scale, which clearly loomed large in Gates’ mind as he composed the letter. “Some people have asked: Why create a foundation in the first place?” he writes. “Would it have been better to donate the money directly to existing groups? Donors have to make their own decisions about this, and there’s no wrong answer.”
Some of the most telling language in Gates’ letter comes directly after that statement, and it’s worth unpacking. Gates starts this way: “Personally, when I thought about how I could do the most good for the most people, the answer was to use my resources to direct more of the world’s funding and innovative IQ toward reducing inequity.”
OK, fair enough. But then there’s this: “The most effective way to do that was to build a new organization with people from the public and private sectors who know how to get new tools invented and delivered. There weren’t any existing groups with this focus and mix of talent.”
Sure, nothing like today’s Gates Foundation existed back in 2000. But it’s a real stretch to claim that no groups existed in which “people from the public and private sectors” worked together to solve problems in new ways. What Gates really means, I think, is that the best way to ensure effectiveness was to emulate his approach with Microsoft — that is, build a platform he controls and proceed to corner the market.
It may sound a little crass to put it that way, but right there in Gates’ letter, we have a window into one of the main issues the foundation faces going forward — its own perceived indispensability. In terms of both its scale and its long-cultivated role as a unique arbiter in the realm of global health and development, the Gates Foundation is a kind of lynchpin for the current global philanthropic order.
And yet that notion of indispensability, real or imagined, is a problem for Bill Gates. Because even as he set about creating an elite, technocratic hub for global giving — one that in an earlier era would certainly have been intended for perpetuity — he also paved the way for today’s generous billionaire rhetoric by founding the Giving Pledge and telling us time and again that he plans to give away his fortune, even as that fortune continued to balloon.
Last year’s revelations that Bill wants the Gates Foundation to spend itself out of existence in a quarter-century accelerated the timeline. Can Gates really prepare the way for a world without Gates, while simultaneously doling out ever-larger tranches of money as traditional grants? And what happens if Buffett’s fortune does end up mostly going to Gates, as Bill still seems to hope and expect? Won’t that even further magnify the challenges that come with being an 800-pound gorilla that wants to, somehow, exit the scene responsibly?
MacKenzie Scott doesn’t really face the same contradictions. Even as she gives away billions at a level comparable to Gates, her lean infrastructure and hands-off approach mean that as important as she’s become, there’s no baked-in notion of indispensability. There’s no expectation that the sector can or should rely on a steady stream of Scott cash, or that the insights and expertise of Scott and her team are a necessary component of making the world a better place.
In his letter, on the other hand, Gates seems attuned to the possibility that backsliding on global health metrics might be seen as unfinished business for a spend-down foundation that has hitched its reputation to positive outcomes and often portrays itself as crucial in securing them.
This problem of legacy likely weighs on Gates. He has positioned himself as a global health savior, capable of marshaling ideas and talent in a unique and indispensable way. Yet because neither he nor his foundation will be around in perpetuity, at some point, they’ll have to shed that mantle and yield power along with money.
For now, though, Gates appears content to stay the course. When the foundation shuts its doors, he writes, “its most important contribution will not be the billions of dollars given away; it will be the teams of experts who developed strategies, partnerships and innovations to reduce inequity.” It’s language oddly reminiscent of MacKenzie Scott’s frequent references to nonprofit teams, but what it implies about the role of the donor is very different.
