Gates CEO Mark Suzman urges wealthy to give away more money, faster

There are enormous benefits to thinking and spending big to help the world address some of its biggest challenges, such as global health and climate change, according to Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In his latest annual letter, published Thursday, Suzman urges donors to give more — and more quickly — to maximize the potential impact on pressing global issues. One of the “most exciting parts” of philanthropy is that “it has the flexibility to adapt quickly and take risks others can’t, which can accelerate progress.” To that end, the foundation is speeding up its own giving. Last week it announced its biggest annual budget ever this year. It plans to spend $8.6 billion, a 4% increase from 2023. The Gates Foundation board has pledged to increase the annual payout to $9 billion by 2026. The foundation is expected to spend down its $67.3 billion endowment after the deaths of co-chairs Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates — a pledge Suzman reiterated in his letter. And Gates, who is 68, said last week that he expects to have given away all of his personal money over the next 20 years. His personal net worth is $142 billion. The ultimate goal of accelerating the foundation’s spending is to make the biggest impact, measured in “lives saved and livelihoods improved,” Suzman wrote. Suzman cited Irish-American businessman and philanthropist Charles “Chuck” Feeney as an inspiration for the foundation’s ambitious spending goals. Feeney, who died last year at the age of 92, donated to charity nearly all of the $8 billion he made as co-founder of a chain of airport duty-free shops and through tech investments. Feeney “thoroughly and thoughtfully” supported public health work in Vietnam and South Africa, among other causes, Suzman said. Suzman’s praise for the generosity of wealthy donors comes as others question whether the world’s wealthiest are doing enough to redistribute their fortunes, many of which increased during the COVID-19 pandemic amid a rise in global poverty and infectious diseases. In the United States, for example, wealth accumulation has outpaced giving among the rich. The foundation’s role Suzman pointed out that governments, first and foremost, bear the responsibility for addressing these issues — followed by multilateral institutions and private companies. However, he also acknowledged the incongruity of wealth increasing for the few as the lives of many worldwide have deteriorated. In addition to persistent health and income inequalities, there are also climate disasters and conflicts, old and new, he said. Yet high-income countries are cutting back on their foreign aid to focus on other domestic and international priorities. “And just as needs are mounting, low-income countries have fewer resources with which to meet them,” Suzman wrote. “Nearly half the world’s people now live in countries that spend more on servicing foreign debt than they do on health care.” Suzman discussed how the Gates Foundation has stepped in to help fill some funding gaps. The organization looks for “market failures,” or areas where the public and private sectors have fewer incentives to invest, and where philanthropic funding can have a catalytic effect. That includes initiatives like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which recently appointed a new CEO. The Gates Foundation is a financing partner for both health organizations. The foundation, which has historically prioritized global health, is also expanding its work related to climate change and artificial intelligence, Suzman said. While most climate spending by governments, nongovernmental organizations, and foundations is focused on mitigating the worst impacts of climate change, the Gates Foundation has prioritized funding to help communities — specifically smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa — adapt to heat waves, droughts, flooding, and other extreme weather events. That work is being done through partnerships with organizations such as CGIAR. Innovations such as disease-resistant chickens and drought-tolerant strains of cassava might not be profitable for private companies to produce, but they “have the potential to help millions of families grow their incomes,” Suzman said. “That’s exactly the kind of market failure we look to address,” he added. The foundation also has been pushing for the inclusion of lower-income countries in AI development, based on the belief that the technology “won’t benefit poor communities unless it’s designed to,” Suzman said. Last year, the foundation pledged to invest $30 million in a new AI platform in Africa to help scientists create health and development solutions. Longstanding priorities such as women’s health and child mortality also remain key issues for the foundation, which has faced its share of criticism for its approach to global health and agriculture and its level of influence over institutions such as the World Health Organization. Suzman responded to some of that criticism in his letter from last year. Bill Gates is also facing unprecedented public scrutiny for his leadership of the foundation. Life and legacy Research has shown that the ultra-rich could have a huge impact on causes such as ending hunger and ensuring access to clean water globally if they gave away just 10% of their income for a year. But most are not doing that. There are a few donors working in ways that inspire the Gates Foundation, Suzman said. Among them is the African Philanthropy Forum. Zimbabwean megadonor Tsitsi Masiyiwa is also highlighted as an example of donors seeking to make significant impacts on global development. Masiyiwa is the board chair of two donor collaboratives: The END Fund for neglected tropical diseases and Co-Impact, which focuses on gender equity. She previously served as board chair for the African Philanthropy Forum. Her husband, Strive Masiyiwa, is a member of the Gates Foundation’s board of trustees. But the Suzman’s biggest tribute is to Feeney, who lived modestly and preferred to give his donations quietly without fanfare or publicity. He “wore a ten-dollar watch” and didn’t own a house or a car, Suzman notes. Bill Gates also celebrated Feeney in a blog post last November, describing him as “one of the greatest philanthropists ever.” Feeney was an inspiration for the creation of The Giving Pledge, which Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett launched in 2010. Buffett was a trustee of the foundation until 2021 and has given more than $50 billion total to the Gates Foundation and four others. The Giving Pledge encourages the ultra-wealthy to give away the bulk of their fortunes within their lifetimes or upon their deaths. Feeney signed on in 2011. “Imagine the possibilities if more donors followed his lead,” Suzman wrote. The net worth of the world’s 2,640 billionaires is at least $12.2 trillion, he said citing data from Forbes. “With $1 billion, philanthropists could fund a set of high-impact, low-cost interventions that would save the lives of two million additional mothers and babies in the next six years,” he said, highlighting data from the Gates Foundation’s 2023 Goalkeepers report. “With $4 billion, they could help a half-billion smallholder farmers become more climate resilient and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 1 gigaton a year by 2030. With just over $7 billion, they could get vaccines to 300 million people, preventing at least 7 million deaths,” according to Suzman. That data on farmers comes from CGIAR. The vaccine information was provided by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. If all of the world’s billionaires donated 0.5% of their wealth, it would “unlock” $61 billion dollars, which would be enough to cover all that and still have $49 billion left over, Suzman said. It’s a lofty goal. But not one that enough wealthy donors seem to share. The 400 richest Americans gave away less than 6% of their combined wealth in 2023, according to a Forbes report. And only a tiny handful of Giving Pledge signatories have either given away their assets or publicly announced arrangements to do so in their wills, according to a report from the Institute for Policy Studies. That is despite the 73 living U.S.-based pledgers who were billionaires in 2010 seeing their wealth increase by 224% when adjusted for inflation, the group said. Of the donations made, most have gone to their own foundations or donor-advised funds, where the money can be held indefinitely, rather than directly to charities, IPS said.