Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - Research Paper Example

THE GATES FOUNDATION Being the largest private grant-making foundation in the word, the Gates Foundation clearly is the biggest philanthropic influence in education and health in the 21st century. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was established in 2000 to decrease inequities around the world and in the United States. With assets of $31 billion, the foundation focuses on preventing and curing diseases in developing countries by improving healthcare (Mohammadi, 150). From the organizational perspective, the Gates Foundation operates within its three main programs: the US program of secondary and post-secondary education, global development program with the specific emphasis on hunger and poverty, including financing for the poor and small farmers, and global health program. The last program evidently receives the most attention in terms of payment for grants, as in 2007 it reached $1.22 billion and accounted for 61% of all donations (Gates Foundation, Annual report, 2007). Additionally, the Gates Foundation works to improve economic conditions around the world through agricultural developments, financial services, and technology services. In the United States, the Gates Foundation focuses on community grants in the Northwest, technology services in libraries, and education across the country (Hill, 2006). From the critical perspective, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation represents the modern ideal of giving and philanthropy, of what Payton and Moody eloquently described as "[it] is about ideas and values as well as about actionis always an effort to blend the idea and the practical" (Payton and Moody, 4). In 2000, the leadership of the Gates Foundation Education Division was committed to being the most publicly scrutinized philanthropy in American history. The main philanthropic goal of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Education Program is to increase significantly the number of low-income minority students who graduate high school with academic skills needed for success in post secondary education and in the workplace (Smerdon and Means, 1). In February of 2005, Bill Gates spoke at a governor's conference in Washington, DC regarding the condition of American high schools (Hess, 2005). The 45 governors in attendance listened as Bill Gates declared America's high schools obsolete. He elaborated by saying, "By obsolete, I mean that our high schools - even when they're working exactly as designed - cannot teach our kids what they need to know today" (Rhodes et al, 7). Additionally, Gates reviewed some troubling evidence to support his comments regarding the lack of success in American high schools. Gates made his point with the nation's governors by stating that only 71% of students graduated high school in 2002, and only 34% were minimally prepared for college (Rhodes et al, 7). In addition to improving American high school system, the Gates Foundation actively seeks to change public policy regarding American schools, which include implementation of transparency in school finance, multiple independent school providers, and performance-based accountability (Hill, 2006). The Foundation's commitment to increasing the number of smaller, personalized high schools, and a knowledge base for success in these schools, has led to the National School District and Network Grants Program. This program is taking a twopronged approach with regard to grantee organizations: (a) grantee organizations are developing new, smaller high schools; and (b) grantee organizations are converting larger high schools into smaller learning communities. As a part of the new high school initiative, the foundation provides grants for Early College High Schools (ECHSs) (Smerdon and Means, 1). The Early College High School Initiative focuses specifically on increased academic rigor through blending high school and college education (Smerdon and Means, 1). The ECHSs are purposefully designed to provide students with a high school diploma and an associate's degree, or 2 years of college credit toward a bachelor's degree within 4 to 5 years (Smerdon and Means, 1). ECHSs make college credits available by collaborating with institutions of higher education, including 4-year universities and 2-year community colleges (Smerdon and Means, 1). Moreover, the Early College High Schools (ECHSs) focus on enrolling students from historically underrepresented populations, such as low-income students, students of color, and first generation college students. The Gates Foundation's goal is to improve the college attendance and completion rates among these groups of students. Hence, these students will be able to begin college early and eliminate the costs of up to 2 years of college tuition. Enhancing global health represents another important aspect of the Gates Foundation philanthropy. Practically, the purpose of Foundation's health improvement plans is to aid health efforts and immunization programs in the developing countries. According to Yamada and his colleagues, six of the Gates-funded malaria programs concentrated exclusively on the needs and health priorities of of disease endemic developing countries (Yamada et al, p.2195). As Yamada and others point out, "the greatest part of the funding in all cases goes to the developing countries" (Yamada et al, p.2195). During the 2010 annual economic conference in Davos, Switzerland, the Gates Foundation announced a decade of vaccine and supported it with a $10 billion pledge to aid vaccine efforts in the world's poorest countrie (Mohammadi, 150). Practically, this financing is expected to enhance current vaccination efforts as well as to provide necessary funding for the development of new vaccines for world's most severe diseases, particularly, tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. The Gates Foundation emphasis on immunization and vaccination efforts for the following decade is understandable. According to global health model designed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 90% vaccine coverage, which includes the rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines, is expected to save 7.6 million lives of children younger than 5 years during the next ten years (Gates Foundation's decade of vaccines, 139). Moreover, the advent of long expected malaria vaccine, which traditionally has been one of the largest focuses of the Gates Foundation, could prevent an additional 1.1 million deaths in developing malaria exposed countries. The Gates Foundation is one of the most influential philanthropic organizations in the world. Currently it is a major contributor to global health with significant unprecedented financial capacity and policy leverage. Within the United States, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation started the number of very important initiatives in the educational system, which are hoped to provide a catalyst to policymakers and educators to reshape secondary education. WORKS CITED Rhodes, D., Smerdon, B., Burt, W., Evan, A., Martinez, B., Means, B, Getting to results: Student outcomes in new and redesigned high schools. American Institutes for Research. Washington, DC, 2005. Available at < http://smallhs.sri.com/documents/Outcomes_Rpt_10_21_2005.pdf> Accessed Nov 19, 2010 Smerdon, B., Means, B. Early college high school initiative: 2003-2005 evaluation report. American Institutes for Research. Washington, DC, 2006. Available at Accessed Nov 19, 2010 Hill, T. "A foundation goes to school: Bill and Melinda Gates shift from computers in libraries to reform in high schools." Education Next, Winter 2006. Available at Accessed Nov 19, 2010 Payton, R. and Moody, M. Understanding Philanthropy: Its Meaning and Mission. Indiana University Press, 2008 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Annual report 2007. Available at Accessed Nov 19, 2010 Yamada T., Targett G., Alonso P, and others. "Global health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." The Lancet. London: Jun 27-Jul 3, 373(9682), 2195-2197, 2009. Mohammadi, D. "Gates Foundation $10 billion pledge for vaccine development." The Lancet. Infectious Diseases. London: Mar, 10(3), 150-152, 2010 Anonymous. Gates Foundation's decade of vaccines The Lancet Infectious Diseases. London: Mar 2010. Vol. 10, Iss. 3; pg. 139, 1 pgs Read More