August 5, 2004 | Read Time: 1 minute
Bill and Melinda Gates have announced that they plan to donate more than $3-billion to their private foundation, which already is the largest foundation in the world, with about $27-billion in assets.
The windfall comes from a dividend Mr. Gates expects to receive this fall from stock he owns in Microsoft, the software giant he helped start. When the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation receives the full sum, the philanthropy will be almost three times as large as any other private foundation in the United States.
The Lilly Endowment, in Indianapolis, the nation’s second-wealthiest foundation, had assets of $10.8-billion in 2003, while the Ford Foundation, the third largest, held about $10-billion in assets last year.
Mr. Gates and his wife have not yet specified when the foundation will receive the dividend, which was approved last month by the board of directors at Microsoft but is contingent upon the approval of shareholders at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in early November. The earliest that the foundation could receive the dividend is December 2.
Federal rules require that private foundations must distribute an average of 5 percent of their net assets to charity every year, meaning that the Gates Foundation would have to give away about $1.5-billion annually once it receives the latest cash infusion. Last year, with $26.8-billion in assets, the Gates Foundation made $1.18-billion in grants to charities.
In a statement, Mr. Gates said that his latest donation will be used to promote the foundation’s goals of “improving equity in health, education, and access to information and human services for vulnerable families.”
