Gates Plans to Make Philanthropy His Top Focus Starting in 2008

By Ian Wilhelm

This month’s announcement that Bill Gates would devote more time to the foundation that bears his name drew

applause from the nonprofit world, with some observers saying the move reflects his ambition to become one of history’s greatest philanthropists.

Mr. Gates, the world’s wealthiest man, said June 15 he would end his day-to-day oversight of the Microsoft Corporation and focus on philanthropy. He will continue to serve as the company’s chairman, but by July 2008 will cease his daily responsibilities at Microsoft to work full time at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mr. Gates chairs the Seattle philanthropy along with his wife, Melinda, and his father, Bill Gates Sr.

“This was a hard decision for me,” Mr. Gates told the news media. But “I believe that with great wealth comes great responsibility, a responsibility to give back to society, a responsibility to see that those resources are put to work in the best possible way to help those most in need.”

Mr. Gates said he will not replace Patty Stonesifer, the foundation’s chief executive, but wants to guide the fund in much the same way he has helped the software company as its chairman. Mrs. Gates, a former Microsoft executive herself, will also be devoting more time to philanthropy.

The Gates Foundation is the largest charitable fund in the United States, with $29.1-billion in assets. The grant maker focuses on global health, U.S. education, public libraries, and social services in the Pacific Northwest.

Building a Legacy

The announcement that one of the most well-known figures in modern history was devoting himself almost entirely to charity work generated excitement among foundation leaders and wealthy donors.

“I predict in 10 years from now he will be better known for his philanthropic endeavors than for his business success,” said Richard Goldman, a philanthropist in San Francisco.

The decision even drew praise from Act Up-Paris, an advocacy group that has criticized the Gates Foundation’s AIDS work in Africa for not supporting small charities and associations of people stricken with the disease. Mr. Gates’s move “brings hope, because in the past few years it’s been looking like the Gates Foundation was a plane without a real pilot, turning into yet another bureaucracy,” said Khalil Elouardighi, Act Up’s advocacy officer for international affairs, in an e-mail message to The Chronicle.

While the decision by the businessman caught many people by surprise, several foundation leaders expected the change.

“He is a man who likes to give his entire attention to a problem, so sooner or later I knew he would come to the conclusion that you can’t be a part-time philanthropist,” said Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and an informal philanthropic adviser to Mr. Gates.

Peter Hero, president of the Community Foundation Silicon Valley, said Mr. Gates alluded to the idea of making philanthropy a priority during a lunch the two had together in 2004.

“He said, ‘You know, Peter, if we don’t get involved, some of the problems are only going to get worse and worse over the next 20 years, and accumulating assets to give away when one passes on is just not acceptable, because the needs are right now,’” Mr. Hero recalled.

Expanding Its Reach

Mr. Gates joins the foundation full time as it is undergoing a number of changes. In April the fund said it would be expanding the number of causes it supports to include agricultural projects and financial services for the poor (The Chronicle, April 20). In addition, the foundation next year breaks ground on a new headquarters building in downtown Seattle.

The foundation’s Ms. Stonesifer said that Mr. Gates’s decision would not lead to additional changes in programs or leadership at the fund. “No other organizational changes are planned,” she said.

Staff members who oversee grant-making programs at the foundation have said Mr. Gates has been involved in its work since the fund’s inception six years ago, often asking detailed questions about complex issues. For example, the software mogul has shown an unwavering intellectual curiosity for even the lesser-known diseases the foundation fights, such as hookworm.

But foundation officials have also said he worked mostly on foundation tasks on the weekends, often sending e-mails to them from home, and rarely spent time in his office at the foundation’s current headquarters.

Mr. Gates has said that eventually he would like to donate up to 90 percent of his wealth, currently estimated by Forbes magazine at about $50-billion.

With this month’s decision, Mr. Gates will now set out to build a philanthropic legacy to rival the 20th century’s most-famous donors, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller Sr., experts in philanthropy said.

Mr. Carnegie, the steel magnate, died in 1919 after endowing the Carnegie Corporation of New York and other famous nonprofit institutions, while Mr. Rockefeller, an oil tycoon, supported universities and efforts to wipe out killer diseases before dying in 1937.

Both men dedicated many years of their lives to help social causes, but Mr. Gates at age 50 will be working full time in philanthropy at a younger age than either of them. Mr. Rockefeller was 54, while Mr. Carnegie was in his 70s when he focused on giving.

Like the two renowned philanthropists, Mr. Gates may also inspire other billionaires and wealthy people to focus more on charitable giving, said Maxwell King, president of the Heinz Endowments, in Pittsburgh. “Putting his brainpower into philanthropy will have great influence on other business leaders and other people of high net worth,” he said.

In some sense, Mr. Gates already has served as an inspiration.

Lisa H. Brooks, director of communications at Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, said his decision gives her hope that charities can tackle hunger, poverty, and other intractable social ills. “It gave me a lot of courage because somebody that big and powerful is going to use his resources to approach major world problems,” she said. “There are so many people making money in this country, but there are so few doing good with that money.”