Bill Gates charity deeds material: from the "iron chicken" to the number one philanthropist
International Herald Herald reporter Liu Jun from Beijing In the fall of 1993, Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Melinda wandered through a dead-end town, its narrow streets lined with boarded-up stores. In the open-air market outside the town, a few women sold their pitifully small amount of vegetables on the ground, and nothing else. Melinda searched the women walking with her eyes to see if they wore shoes? The result disappointed her: no, they were all barefoot.
Melinda was accompanied by her boyfriend, Bill Gates. Gates also did not believe what he saw, at this time, at the age of 38 years old, he is already sitting on billions of dollars of wealth, but did not think that there are still people on this planet do not even have shoes to wear.
1. Wealth and pressure
However, Gates' compassion was touched just a little, but did not put it into action, and his personality of the money like dirt still did not change much. This year, Gates, a keen collector in New York Sotheby's auction house to 20 million dollars from a collector to buy Childer? Hassam's "flower room", than the original owner of the original price of 5.5 million dollars, nearly four times higher. A year later, he dropped $30.8 million on Italian Renaissance master Da Vinci's 18-page notebook. Finch's 18-page notebook, which was a drop in the bucket for Gates, who already had $8.3 billion in assets.
In that year, Americans donated $124 billion, equivalent to 1.7% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), and at that time, Gates was still a penny "iron rooster".
1994 is a year of mixed blessings in the life of Gates. This year, on New Year's Day, he and Melinda finally married. Wedding, Gates in Lanai chartered all the cars, helicopters and 250 hotel rooms. In the same year, Gates' beloved mother died of cancer.
Such a huge change made Gates mentally and emotionally devastated. The world's richest man began to rethink the meaning of life and the direction of life. That year, at his father's suggestion, he put up $94 million to establish the William? Gates Foundation, which is the predecessor of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates Foundation. A year later, in commemoration of the first anniversary of his mother's death, the Gateses donated $10 million to the University of Washington and established the Mary K. Gates Scholarship in her name. Gates Scholarship. Since then, Bill and Melinda have also donated $1 million to Seattle's Flood? Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
However, the American public only noticed that his fortune had risen to $12.9 billion in 1995, and his philanthropy was rarely mentioned. The real twist came in 1997. In September of that year, the United States owed the United Nations more than a billion dollars in arrears, and the United Nations was on the verge of financial ruin. CNN (CNN) founder Ted? Turner unexpectedly announced a donation of $ 1 billion to the United Nations to cope with the financial crisis and other development assistance programs.
The U.S. media prominently featured the announcement, describing Turner as the leader of a new generation of U.S. philanthropic moguls. This is an understatement, as the $1 billion donation represents almost a third of Turner's personal assets. Zhang Wen, director of the China Children's Hope Relief Foundation, was in the United States at the time, and she remembers Turner telling the media, "I donated so much money to the United Nations, the world's richest man, what are you doing with your money there?"
Some newspapers and magazines even counted the amount of money and donations made by major U.S. billionaires and accused Gates, as the world's richest man, of not giving a dime. In the media rendering, the call for Gates to donate money and give back to the community is growing, and has become a powerful social pressure.
2. Tormented and touched
The first to feel uneasy about the barrage of criticism from the US was not Gates, but his father. Bill's father, Gates Sr, was a respected retired attorney in the area, and his mother, Mary, had been a prominent social activist in the Seattle area, and had always been quite involved in philanthropy.
But in Gates' view, everyone has their own way of giving back to society. Microsoft has solved tens of thousands of people's employment problems, boosted the prosperity of the high-tech industry, and led to a vibrant U.S. economy, so isn't this a contribution to society? But the community's need for him is not the only thing, every day there are countless letters of help, request letters snowflake fly.
But it wasn't until a year later that a media report made Gates' decision to become a philanthropist "painful."
In 1998, when Gates was facing a Microsoft lawsuit and was in a state of mental anguish, an article in the Sunday edition of The New York Times touched the couple's hearts. The article used figures and charts to outline the vast differences in income, health care and average life expectancy in different countries around the world. The article said that globally, 90% of diseases occur in poor countries, but people in these countries, however, have only 10% of the resources for health care.
The article once again evoked the personal experience of the Gates' 1993 trip to Africa. Melinda later recalled, "I remember that was the first time Bill and I talked about how tragic these diseases were for the children. We asked ourselves, what can we do?"
The couple first sent the article to Gates Sr. and then went to him for a detailed discussion. Bill excitedly told his father, "We might be able to do something to change that." They asked Gates Sr. to help them learn and master health care. From that point on, the William? The focus of the Gates Foundation has since shifted to health care. Dime a dozen "Scrooge" began to donate large sums of money "like gold".
3. Change and satisfaction
When the old Gates repeatedly urged Gates to fulfill the "obligation" of a citizen to give back to society, but also anxious about it. What Gates has done since then is far beyond what he or anyone else could have imagined. In fact, people also overlooked a detail, in 1997, Gates and Melinda on the establishment of a new foundation: Gates Library Foundation, committed to public **** library so that more people have access to scientific and technological resources. 1999, Gates Library Foundation renamed Gates Learning Foundation, with the name change, the foundation's focus also changed, from funding public **** library changed to funding the needs of families and minorities, the foundation's focus has also changed, from funding public **** library changed to funding the needs of families and minorities. libraries to funding students from disadvantaged families and minorities so that they have the opportunity to go to school.
Gates' philanthropic endeavors have climbed as high as his wealth. It was in August of that year that the elder Gates made a startling disclosure. In an interview with the Sunday Times, he announced that Gates planned to donate the more than $100 billion he owned according to the calculations at the time, leaving only $10 million to each of his children, with the donations mainly used to help those suffering from AIDS and malaria.
The following year, the William Gates Foundation and the Gates Foundation for Learning were launched. The following year, the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation merged to become the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Bill and Melinda? Gates Foundation began in the basement of the old Gates residence office, and later moved into a small two-story building in Seattle, *** has a staff of 216 people, including children's health advisers, public health management experts, lawyers, financial staff and so on. Gates is said to take an average of 10 hours a week to busy himself with the foundation.
In order to use the fund, Gates is even on the verge of becoming half an expert on medical issues. During his vacation in Brazil, he also read with interest through the molecular biologist James? Watson's book "Molecular Biology of Genes". Gates reveals, "Biology has enabled us to overcome one disease after another. I'm currently reading books on tuberculosis and AIDS. I'm really into general biology, such as the human immune system and things like that, and I think it's just very interesting. And of course it has a lot to do with the goals of our foundation's work."
The impact of the aid has been remarkable. Since the implementation of the Gates Foundation donation program, has made a number of countries in Africa, the vaccination rate of children increased significantly, the average cost of vaccination for each child from less than 1 U.S. dollar to 10 U.S. dollars, and succeeded in saving more than 1 million people's lives. Gates later accepted the media interview, said: "In my opinion, the two feelings are similar people buy how much software? and? How many lives were saved? , are very beautiful numbers."
In the eyes of Ye Lei, chief representative of the Gates Foundation's Beijing office, the Gateses are a pair of very dedicated philanthropists. " They come to every place, purely to learn to visit the attitude to understand what is going on, where the problem is, what are the key things; if the Gates Foundation is going to participate, we should do something. It's a humble learning attitude." Ye Lei said that Gates has publicly told employees that he has felt the greatest personal satisfaction in recent years, lies in the cause of improving the fairness of the world, and he feels that this is very meaningful. (Parts of this article are from the book "Bill Gates' New Legend" published by China Youth Press. Gates New Legend" book)
Bill Gates' philanthropic deeds material: how American-style charity is made
International Herald Herald reporter Liu Jun from Beijing This is the sixth time Tori has asked her neighbors to donate money.
"Can you donate ten dollars? All this money goes to help Chinese orphans." The 10-year-old American girl begged her neighbor outside her door. Every year since she was five, Tori has participated in Operation Hope, a fundraising campaign for Chinese orphans. Every time, she calls or goes to the door of all her relatives, friends and neighbors to persuade them to donate, and every year at Christmas, she tells them she doesn't want any gifts, but only money, which she then donates.
Zhang Wen, director of the China Children's Hope Relief Foundation, is a good friend of Tori's mother, and she often encounters such touching stories when she lives in the United States. It seems that charity in the United States is not only a hobby for entrepreneurs, but also a national movement.
1. The tradition of charity
The survey statistics of the Center for Philanthropic Studies at the University of Indiana show that in 2005, 67% of American families contributed to charities, and the proportion of high-income families (with annual incomes of more than $200,000, and property of more than $1 million) contributed as much as 98%. In fact, over the past 40 years, the average annual charitable contribution by Americans has amounted to 1.8 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). In an interview with the International Herald Leader, Xu Yongguang, the initiator of Project Hope and vice president of the Nandu Public Welfare Foundation, said that in the past few years, the annual per capita donation in the United States has reached more than 800 U.S. dollars, while in China, even less than 10 yuan.
Americans' enthusiasm for charity is largely related to their religious beliefs. A passage from the Gospel of Luke in the Bible says, "And Jesus looked up and saw the rich man casting his alms into the treasury, and a poor widow casting in two small pieces of money, and he said, 'I tell you the truth, the poor widow is not a man of the world, but she is a woman of the world. Verily I say unto you, This poor widow hath cast in more than the multitude: for all the multitude had a surplus of their own, and took it out, and cast it into the offering; but this widow hath a deficiency of her own, and hath cast in all that she had to support herself."
"This is the same as what we Chinese always say? Giving away roses, hands have fragrance? is a truth." Having founded charities in the United States since the mid-1990s that specialize in helping American families adopt Chinese orphans, Zhang Wen knows the culture of philanthropy well. "American churches emphasize ? Tithing? , which means that God asks everyone to give 10 percent of their annual income to the church."
At school, American kids are taught about charity from an early age. "For example, schools will teach children to sell their little glasses and donate them to the Salvation Army (charitable organizations), who help the poor." Zhang Wen said that every year, the United States a variety of fund-raising activities are numerous, "everyone a little bit is a great force, focusing on participation."
Zhang Wen's friend, the wife of the U.S. Ambassador to China, David Reade, practiced her philanthropic philosophy in the same way. "As the ambassador's wife herself, she could have just said a few words to call for donations, but instead of doing that, she told her own children to visit Chinese children's welfare organizations and teach them to sing . She herself has donated things to charity sales and donated the money to working children's children in China." Wen Zhang said, "Charity is a process of getting, if you just give money, you may not get it. Your heart is only there after you participate yourself."
2. Institutional incentives
If ordinary Americans are keen to be charitable because they believe in a "culture of mutual aid", then perhaps the rich donate to a "culture of sinful wealth". It is believed that the rich are inherently "sinners" and that the only way for the rich to enter heaven is to donate all their wealth to the poor.
Such a doctrine has been y rooted in the life philosophy of the American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie's philosophy of life. 1889, the United States, one of the great founders of private philanthropy in the book "The Gospel of Wealth" wrote: "It will not be long before those who have left behind a great deal of wealth (and do not donate it during their lifetime) will be public scorn. People who die rich die disgraced." This classic of modern American philanthropy is said to be one of Bill? Gates' one of his favorite books.
If these are the internal causes of American participation in charity, the external cause is the American tax rebate system. The Wall Street Journal reporter living in the United States Yuan Li said, in the United States, donations tax deductions are considered a matter of course, even if the donation of old clothes can ask for a tax deduction. When political figures run for office, the media often check their tax returns to determine whether they are passionate about public service based on the amount of tax deductions. The president of the United States and local legislators have been ridiculed by public opinion because of the small amount of tax deductions on their tax forms.
3. Transparency
In addition to the gap in the tax rebate system, the number of charitable organizations in China is also very small compared to the United States. Xu Yongguang said that there are currently more than 100 charitable organizations in China, while there are one million in the United States. The U.S. private donations of about 260 billion U.S. dollars a year, volunteer time converted to the amount is also equivalent to about this number, and more than half of the U.S. donations from the public.
With a large charitable sector comes competition, and with competition comes transparency. "In the United States, those public institutions are completely privatized, they can only rely on his own credit to grow and develop, if you have credit problems, you will not receive donations." Xu Yongguang said that this competitive nature makes them all highly transparent about the use of donations. "Quite simply, in order to grow, each organization does what it can to improve its credibility, and when donors ask where the donations are being used, the public organizations have to give accounts and answers."
Bill Gates's charitable deeds material: Gates's China charity story
International Herald Herald reporter Liu Jun from Beijing At 8 a.m., Zhuang Hao (a pseudonym) came to the CDC in Chaoyang District, Beijing, located in Panjiayuan. A month ago, this representative of a Beijing-based gay non-governmental organization (NGO) was notified by the authorities that he would meet Bill Gates here. Gates.
Less than an hour later, a Buick business class station wagon arrived at the CDC. Escorted by two bodyguards, Gates walked into the building wearing a light gray suit and a smile. Next, Zhuang Hao, representatives of other NGOs, and several people living with HIV sat down with Gates for a 40-minute closed-door exchange.
It was April 18, 2007, the second day of Bill Gates' tenth trip to China.
It was April 18, 2007, the second day of Bill Gates' tenth trip to China. Seven years later, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the Gates Foundation) officially announced that it would donate $50 million over five years to help prevent and control the spread of AIDS in China.
1. First Overseas Office
This is a huge boon for Chinese people living with HIV and those at high risk. Over the past 10 years, the Gates Foundation has invested billions of dollars in AIDS prevention efforts in developing countries such as Africa and India, and 10 years later, AIDS remains the most serious challenge for all of humanity. Of the $50 million allocated to China, $20 million will go to the Chinese Ministry of Health, and the remaining $30 million will be provided to Chinese private NGOs targeting men who have sex with men, clandestine prostitutes, and intravenous drug users in 13 large and medium-sized Chinese cities as well as Hainan Province.
Of all the Gates Foundation's aid programs around the world, HIV prevention is one of the most heavily invested. In an interview with the International Herald Leader, Ye Lei, the chief representative of the Gates Foundation's Beijing Representative Office, said that this is one of the reasons why Gates chose HIV/AIDS prevention as its first program in China.
In fact, a few years ago, when the Gates Foundation launched its AIDS program in India, Gates' attention had already turned to China. in the summer of 2004, when Gates embarked on his China trip, Ye Lei was invited by Gates to participate in a roundtable discussion with Chinese disease-control experts, representatives of NGOs, and people living with HIV. Ye Lei was invited by Gates to participate in a roundtable with Chinese disease control experts, NGO representatives, and people living with HIV. This meeting is considered to be the beginning of the Gates Foundation's presence in China.
Since then, the foundation has been preparing for two years of research. On the one hand, the Gates Foundation sends a delegation to China every year to study the current situation of AIDS prevention among high-risk groups. Guan Baoying, then deputy director of the Disease Control Division of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Health, recalled to the International Herald Tribune: "In these two years, I took them to visit gay and lesbian venues and methadone treatment sites for drug users in Beijing, etc. They asked very detailed questions, not only chatting with the medical staff, but also asking about the situation of those who were taking the medication on an outpatient basis before and after taking the medication. "
On the other hand, at the Gates Foundation's headquarters in Seattle, there is a recurring debate within the foundation about what model to use to work on programs in China. "There are several models. One is to give the funds to international organizations in the United States and let them operate in China; the second is what the Gates Foundation did in India: hire some professional staff to operate locally. The third model is to build a representative office in China and directly give the funding to local governments and NGOs to operate, and we do the technical and management support." Ye Lei recalled.
The decision-making process was a bit lengthy, and it took about a year or so before the Gates Foundation decided to use the third working model to carry out its programs in China, but new troubles came.
2. Innovative Aid Models
The Gates Foundation had to delay restarting its China program for a year after China suspended the registration of all international organizations in 2006.
In November 2007, just as the foundation pledged to donate $50 million to China, the Gates Foundation's Beijing office was finally opened in an office building on North Jianguomen Street in Beijing. This small office, which can accommodate only 10 people, has office conditions that are not comparable to those of the headquarters, but it sets a precedent? The Gates Foundation's first overseas representative office.
This has two strengths, in Ye Lei's view. "The (anti-AIDS) situation in China is not a state of pure lack of funding, but a lack of technical and managerial support, and also doing the work of connecting the government and NGOs is a very important task, but if the office is in Seattle, so that there will be a lack of efficient support." Ye Lei said, in addition, if not set up a representative office, due to U.S. legal restrictions, the Gates Foundation money to think of China must be through the U.S. international organizations, so that the indirect operation will also affect the efficiency.
After less than a year of operation, the Gates Foundation Beijing office is on track. "Anti-AIDS work in each province and city is gradually starting, and our program is not a stand-alone program, but rather combines with existing anti-AIDS programs in each place to accelerate their work progress and intervention capacity." Ye Lei said that the Gates Foundation's goal in China is to help the country develop a full range of talent to prevent AIDS.
Fostering collaboration between the government and NGOs, as Yerei puts it, is a key focus for Yerei and his colleagues. "That way you can get the AIDS prevention work to the desired level quickly." Ye Lei said. Guan Baoying agrees, and in an interview with the International Herald Tribune, the vice president of the Beijing STD and AIDS Association said, "Beijing is considered to be doing relatively well in the country, but the number of HIV-infected people under management is less than 30 percent of the total." In contrast, NGOs rooted in the "grassroots" are more familiar with this group.
The solution offered by Ye Lei is to pay by the piece. "For example, if an NGO finds a person to test, they can get 100 dollars, and the government health department responsible for doing the test can also get 100 dollars for doing a test." Ye Lei explained that in this way, the more people NGOs find, the more money they get, the more people they introduce, the more funding the government testing department gets, so they are more motivated and more willing to cooperate with each other."
Such an MLA is actually Gates' own idea. "After the strategic plan for the CDFA project was submitted to headquarters, he quickly approved it." Ye Lei said that in 2007, that trip to the CDC in Chaoyang, Gates is for this plan specifically for inspection.
3. Spending money and earning the same heart
That day, accompanied by the visit of Guan Baoying thought, Gates hurriedly look at it on the way out, but did not expect him to see each of the crowd representatives are careful to understand the situation. Gates left the deepest impression on Guan Baoying, who was approachable and responsible. "He asked the infected crowd who provided the anti-viral drugs and whether the government had any free treatment in other areas." Guan Baoying said he was clearly prepared for the visit, which originally lasted 20 minutes and was extended to 40 minutes.
The time that belonged to Zhuang Hao was just two or three minutes. "He kept listening and didn't talk too much." Zhuang Hao recalled, "He and I had some exchanges on how to carry out the work of preventing AIDS among men who have sex with men (MSM). I told him that we plan to establish a referral pathway between the MSM community and domestic resource parties for prevention and treatment of the disease through our own efforts and collaboration with various sectors." To Zhuang Hao's surprise, at the time of parting, Gates readily wrote an encouraging inscription for the organization: Your work is very important. Bill Gates (你们的工作非常重要!). Bill Gates (Your work is very important! Bill Gates)
What Yere admires most about Gates is his professionalism. "Gates takes every penny he puts into the foundation very seriously, not just putting in this project when he hears someone say it's good, or not putting in that one if it's bad. He didn't just go through the motions, but he went very deep into it and researched it." Ye Lei recalled, "We often chat about AIDS, public **** health issues, I found that his understanding of these issues than many experts to go deeper."
AIDS prevention is only the first program that the Gates Foundation has implemented in China, and the $50 million is only the first installment. Before the end of this year, including agricultural technology, tuberculosis control, including two or three large projects will be launched. This fall, Gates will once again set foot on Chinese soil, to start his eleventh trip to China. Unlike in the past, this time he will not talk about Microsoft, but only about charity.
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