Flavour of the month: Gates's philanthropic prowess

Some individuals have the art of making it big in whatever endeavors they undertake -- Bill Gates, for instance. Be it managing Microsoft or indulging in philanthropic activities, Gates has strived to put his best foot forward.

While his professional life has been successful, Gates decided to spend quality time in philanthropic work. Started during the millennium year, B&MGF (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) is the globe’s biggest foundation and is being transparently managed by its founders. It received a boost by Warren Buffet’s charitable contribution in 2006.

The first two years of functioning saw the company’s funding surge from $126 million to $2 billion. Melinda Gates and Bill Gates, by merging William H Gates Foundation and Gates Learning Foundation, made this single entity possible.

The Seattle, Washington-based organization aims at enhancing healthcare, bringing down poverty and expanding opportunities in the field of education and faster and better entrée to information technology.

The organization has been divided into four wings with the first division headed by Cheryl Scott, the chief operating officer. This division comes under the core operations segment while the other three namely--Global Development Program, Global Health Program and United States Program fall under grant making section.

Global Development Program

Under this, B&MGF looks to fight poverty by offering financial services to the poor and providing agricultural development. The Global Development Program (GDP) strives to work under the leadership of Sylvia Mathews to support small-scale farmers to improve production of crops and gaining better access to markets.

GDP has partnered with institutions such as Rockefeller Foundation to augment agricultural sciences and productivity in small-scale farms in the African continent.

Besides this, GDP has made substantial contributions to rebuild lives after natural calamities such as the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.

Global Health Program

About $800 million is being donated for the cause of bringing improvement in the global health scenario. Significant grants in the field of HIV research, programs related to children’s vaccine and donations to institutions such as The Institute for OneWorld Health, University of Washington Department of Global Health, etc. have been made.

United States Program

Under this wing, the Foundation looks to fund education through scholarships and grants. Students of institutes such as Carnegie Mellon University, University of Washington School of Law and the Discovery Institute are its beneficiaries.

Critics

Much like his earlier endeavors, Gates faced the flak for excluding Caucasians from the scholarships under the Gates Millennium Scholars Fund, which awarded scholarships to Asians, American Indians, Afro-Americans and others.

The foundation also faced heavy criticism with regards to its investments last year and vowed to look into the investment matter but the reviewing matter was called off.

While criticism is not new in Gates’s life, but after decades of staying at the top, he surely knows how to tackle them and in return ensure that wider interest of the world remains intact through his deeds.