The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) was established in 1994 with a $94 million starting investment. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is currently the biggest charitable group in the US, with an estimated market value of $33.5 billion.
Board and Management Structure
A Board is the BMGF's superior. The Board of Directors, which is made up primarily of members of the Gates family and other wealthy businesspeople, serves as the organization's highest degree of management. Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, and William Gates Sr. are members of the board. The second level of management includes the executive leadership team, which comprises of the chairpersons and Trustees, co-chair, chief executive officer, the president of the United States program, the chief of the Global development program, global health CEO, Global Development managing director and other executives. The top leaders are responsible for all the activities of the organization. The middle-level management team is made up of the managers of the different category teams, including Global development program, United States program, global policy and advocacy, operations, and global health program teams. The low-level management is comprised of the workers. The BMGF is made up 1,420 employees. The Gates Foundation has representatives from all around the world, but the top managers are all based in the United States.
Major Goals and Initiatives
The primary aim of the foundation is to increase its investment in healthy mothers and babies, to reduce child mortality by improving on the nutrition methods, development and enhancement of education around the world through innovation, and to develop various ways of tackling poverty in developing countries. The foundation's main focus is based on helping people in need in improving their livelihood through health care and learning. It also explores the benefits of the use of modern science and technology on individuals especially for the people living in poverty around the world. In order to achieve their objectives, the foundation concentrated efforts on three spheres, which are global health, the US program and the Global development (Gates, 2003).
Global Health Initiative
In the global health initiative, the Gates Foundation funded research on the HIV/AIDS vaccines. Almost seventy percent of sub-Saharan population are infected with the AIDS virus. In return for the funding, the foundation requires the pharmaceutical companies to reduce their cost of drugs and vaccines, especially to the developing countries. The Gates Foundation provided research funds more quickly than other foundations. Other health care projects have also received funding from the organization such as the cervical cancer initiative in 1999. In total, the foundation has used over $ 400 million on health initiative annually, has partnered with several organizations to develop equipment and drugs and has been investing in structural prevention solutions such as the provision of fresh water, nutrition, and sanitation. Other initiatives include the malaria prevention initiatives, which aims at eradicating malaria in developing countries.
Accomplishments
The foundation has attained significant impact on the public health policy (Wadman, 2007). The grantees and the partners must draft proper plan that would reduce the cost of health products. The Gates Foundation mandated the researchers to work together in the development of health products to fasten the process. For example, in 2006, the AIDS researchers were advised to share their data on AIDS vaccine so that the research could move forward quickly (Chase, 2006).
Sue Desmond-Hellmann in a press release states that the most momentous achievement of the foundation is the investments in the elimination of the diseases like malaria, polio, meningitis, tuberculosis, and HIV. The child mortality rates in developing countries have been reduced by approximately fifty percent each year.
References
BMGF (2006). Annual Report. Seattle, WA, USA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Chase M (2006). Gates won't fund AIDS researchers unless they pool data. The Wall Street Journal (20 July) PubMed
Gates W (2003). Humane research: the West's best scientists should turn their attention to the Developing World's diseases. The Wall Street Journal (26 January)
Wadman M (2007). Biomedical philanthropy: state of the donation. Nature 447: 248–250 PubMed
