A careful review of more than 200 letters written by the wealthy people who signed the Giving Pledge over its first decade suggests a big contradiction.
In past recessions, donors have tightened their pursestrings even as the need has grown. But two scholars explain why, at least for foundations, there’s room for more generosity in tough times.
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of filamentous Ebola virus particles (blue) budding from an infected cell (yellow-green).
NIAID
The Trump administration has cut funding for infectious disease research and reduced high-level staffing for global health security, leaving the nation less prepared for major outbreaks.
Millions of young children get malaria. These two got it in 2010.
AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam
There’s a big market for new treatments for TB, malaria and other ailments. But most of these diseases afflict low-income people unable to pay for medicine.
Bill Gates looks to his wife Melinda as they are interviewed in Kirkland, Washington, in February 2019.
Elaine Thompson/AP
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is on a mission to get schools to adopt a “high-quality” curriculum. But the effort will constrain teachers and stifle creativity, an education scholar argues.
It’s time to seriously rethink giving tax breaks for charitable donations, since ultimately taxpayers foot the bill for the deductions anyway.
(Shutterstock)
Several countries — namely Austria, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland — have removed tax benefits for charitable donations. Here’s why Canada should follow suit.
When subsistence farmers become climate refugees, who will help them pay the cost of relocation?
gregorioa/Shutterstock.com
Morten Wendelbo, American University School of Public Affairs
The $4 billion that foundations are pledging to spend within five years amounts to less than 1 percent of what businesses and governments spend on global warming every year.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the eponymous foundation speaks at Pretoria University, Mamelodi Campus. His foundation is particularly active in the field of health care but also finances numerous institutions dedicated to research.
Marco Longari/AFP
Fabrice Jaumont, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH)
American charitable foundations have gradually established themselves as key players in the African academic sector. If the benefits have been remarkable, there are risks as well.
Jeff Bezos (right), now the world’s second-richest person, is charting a different course for his philanthropy than Bill Gates (left), the richest, and Warren Buffett (center), who has fallen to third place.
Reuters/Jim Tanner
Ted Lechterman, Stanford University McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society
Amazon’s founder turned to Twitter to crowdsource ideas for his charitable giving. This populist approach and his preference for short-term results set Jeff Bezos apart from other mega-donors.
Community health workers like these visit patients’ homes in Malawi to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation–Malawi/Chris Cox
All recent Republican presidents have cut off foreign aid tied to abortion. Trump’s expansive version of those restrictions endangers billions slated for HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Actress and U.N. Population Fund Goodwill Ambassador Ashley Judd visited a refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan in 2016.
AP Photo/Raad Adayleh
Bill Gates, who has been identified as the world’s most significant donor in the fight against AIDS, shares his thoughts on the pandemic with Africa’s most prominent HIV/AIDS academics.
Arne Duncan opened the gates to a powerful network.
House Committee on Education and the Workforce Dem
By bringing private advocates to the fore in education, Arne Duncan further opened public education to privatized influences.
Improving maternal mortality and ending preventable deaths in children are some of the health targets in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade/Flickr
Health has secured its place as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. But without clear mechanisms to report, finance or engage other sectors, could more end up as less?
Industrial agriculture has created a food system that is inherently undemocratic in its disregard for human need.
Shutterstock/Todd Klassy
The global food production system is inherently undemocratic. Based on shared experiences of the adverse effects, the world’s citizens need to intervene as democratic publics to transform a broken system.
An historian reading the government White Paper on developing northern Australia will realise we’re actually heading all the way back to the 1890s.
andrew matthews/Flickr
The federal government’s recent White Paper on developing northern Australia has disturbing echoes of the 1890s, a time when unbridled capitalism and indentured labour developed the North.