Gates Foundation

• The foundation says requests must fall within its funding priorities, which it lists as maternal and child health, infectious diseases and economic opportunity, with a stated geographic priority of the United States and more than 130 countries, so a request fits best if it clearly serves one of those themes.
• Its typical grant band runs from $100,000 to $2,300,000, about 8 in 10 of its 13,503 grants fall within it, and the median grant is about $505,000, so a request near that scale is in line with what it usually gives, though the band is not a ceiling because its largest grant was about $350,000,000.
• The filing says it generally invites proposals by contacting organisations itself and only occasionally awards grants through published Requests for Proposals, so an unsolicited approach is less clearly the usual route and an organisation should watch for published RFPs.
• In its latest filing, 87% of its grant dollars to organisations went to organisations it had also funded in earlier filings, so giving looks relationship-led and a newcomer should expect an established pool of grantees.
• Organisations whose work falls outside those funding priorities should not apply, since the foundation states it does not fund grants outside them.

The largest grants to organisations in the foundation’s latest filing:

• Gavi Alliance · Vaccine delivery
  $350,500,0002024 tax year
• Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria · Global health and development public awareness and analysis
  $283,358,7992024 tax year
• Gates Medical Research Institute · Enterics, diagnostics, genomics & epidemiology; malaria; maternal, newborn, child nutrition and health; pneumonia & pandemic preparedness; research and learning opportunities; tuberculosis; vaccine development
  $276,581,8172024 tax year
• Rotary Foundation of Rotary International · Polio
  $120,500,0002024 tax year
• World Health Organization · Polio
  $64,987,5182024 tax year
• World Health Organization · Polio
  $52,000,0002024 tax year
• PATH · Discovery and translational sciences; enterics, diagnostics, genomics & epidemiology; malaria; pneumonia & pandemic preparedness; polio; research and learning opportunities; vaccine delivery; vaccine development
  $41,020,7522024 tax year
• International Bank for Reconstruction and Development · Enterics, diagnostics, genomics & epidemiology; family planning; global health and development public awareness and analysis; maternal, neonatal and child health; maternal, newborn, child nutrition and health; nutrition; pneumonia & pandemic preparedness; research and learning opportunities
  $37,900,0002024 tax year

Grants to organisations listed in the foundation’s Form 990-PF filings. Grants to individuals are not shown.

Figures from the foundation’s IRS Form 990-PF filings. Assets are at fair market value at year end. The document icon links to each year’s filing on ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.