In October 2006, our trustees created a two-entity structure. One entity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, distributes money to grantees. The other, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, manages the endowment assets. This structure enables us to separate our program work from the investment of our assets.
How the Foundation Trust works
The Foundation Trust holds the endowment, including the annual installments of Warren Buffett’s gift, and funds the foundation. Bill and Melinda are the trustees for the Foundation Trust, and the endowment is managed, as it has been for almost three decades, by Cascade Management Company.
The role of the foundation
The foundation conducts all operations and grantmaking work and is the entity from which all grants are made. Bill, Melinda, Mark, Ashish Dhawan, Dr. Helene D. Gayle, Strive Masiyiwa, Minouche Shafik, and Tom Tierney are members of the foundation’s board of trustees. Warren has no involvement in the investment of the endowment through the Foundation Trust, including decisions that might be made regarding Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock.
Because Bill and Melinda believe the right approach is to focus the foundation’s work in the 21st century, we will spend all of our resources within 20 years after Bill's and Melinda's deaths.
The decision to use all of the foundation’s resources in this century underscores our optimism for progress and determination to do as much as possible, as soon as possible, to address the comparatively narrow set of issues we’ve chosen to focus on.
