Gates Foundation

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced yesterday that it will review its investments to determine whether its holdings are socially responsible. In addition to what it called a continuing review of "our approach to investments," the foundation said on its Web site, "we will review other strategies that can fulfill a social responsibility role, both in terms of their aspirations and in understanding the impact that they may have. We will also formalize the process by which Bill and Melinda Gates analyze and review these issues."

Your health section recently noted that a Hopkins dean was among those who want to eradicate polio ("Hopkins dean joins effort to eradicate polio," April 21). I believe we all ascribe to that hope. My comment comes from the point of view of all the work and money spent over the last 30 years by the Rotary Foundation and it's 34,000 community-based service clubs to achieve just that. The fact is that Rotary International was the first organization to have the vision of a polio free world, and it has since contributed over $1 billion to eradicate polio - not to mention the thousands of Rotarians who have rolled up their sleeves to volunteer during National Immunization Days.

The summer after his sophomore year in college, Paul Sonenthal joined a team of U.S. health researchers in India who asked truck drivers and sex workers how they protected themselves against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The drivers said the cabs of their trucks - where they hold liaisons - were too hot for HIV to survive. This wasn't true, of course, but it helped explain the high rate of infection among India's truckers, whose nomadic lifestyle has helped spread AIDS across the subcontinent.

State schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick finally seems to have seen the light regarding the sweeping changes Maryland must make to improve its schools - even though it took a stiff rebuff from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to deliver the message. If officials get serious about reforms that will keep Maryland competitive with other states, then it may be the best rejection letter we've ever received. Last week, the foundation turned down Maryland's application for a grant to help it seek millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funds, money earmarked for states with a serious commitment to school reform.

NEW YORK -- When the world's second-richest man signed the bulk of his fortune over to the world's richest man's foundation yesterday, Bill Gates (No. 1) quipped to Warren E. Buffett (No. 2): "I didn't see your hands shaking there." The signing ceremony for the largest charitable bequest in history took place in a marbled-lined room at the main New York Public Library, which is the product of several storied fortunes, including those of John Jacob Astor and Andrew Carnegie. Afterward, Buffett remarked to an audience of several hundred philanthropists, scientists, students and United Nations officials that it is far easier to make a fortune than to decide how to give it away.

THEY WOULDN'T take no for an answer. City school officials knew the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn't accept unsolicited requests for education grants. They knew that a program officer with the foundation had already declined city government officials' invitation to invest here. But at a school reform conference in Oakland, Calif., early last year, Pamela E. Johnson, city schools' development director, made another run at the mega-million-dollar foundation. "What do we have to do to get your interest?"

An American support group for UNICEF, the United Nations children's fund, announced yesterday that it has received its largest donation ever, a grant of $26 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation earmarked for the elimination of tetanus among mothers and babies in the poorest nations.Nearly 250,000 people, most of them infants, died of tetanus in the developing world in 1998, according to the U.S. Committee for UNICEF, the American support group and the oldest of UNICEF's 37 national support committees.

S tate schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick finally seems to have seen the light regarding the sweeping changes Maryland must make to improve its schools - even though it took a stiff rebuff from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to deliver the message. If officials get serious about reforms that will keep Maryland competitive with other states, then it may be the best rejection letter we've ever received. Last week, the foundation turned down Maryland's application for a grant to help it seek millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funds, money earmarked for states with a serious commitment to school reform.

Foundation investments $367 million Gates Foundation investments in stocks, bonds or securities of 20 of the top 25 sub-prime lenders and other large sub-prime companies.$1.9 billion The amount of stocks and securities the foundation holds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.$2.2 billion The foundation's overall investments in sub-prime companies or their securities in 2005. [Source: Gates Foundation '05 tax returns]

SEATTLE -- When the cold call came from Ameriquest Mortgage Co., a top lender, Jeff and Cheryl Busby were intrigued. They had been wanting to renovate the garage of their small bungalow near picturesque Green Lake. The agent, they said, promised that refinancing would give them $20,000 in cash, yet lower the monthly payments. The agent was a smooth talker, and the Busbys were not concerned that he didn't offer them a chance to study the documents. They later found that their interest rate was 11 percent - far too high.

Maryland's efforts to reel in up to $260 million in federal stimulus money aimed at education reform received a setback this week. The state did not get a competitive grant from the nonprofit Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help put together an application for the stimulus money, according to Maryland State Department of Education spokesman Bill Reinhard. The $4 billion in Race to the Top education money is the largest pot of federal money ever dedicated to education reform, and it is expected to spur states to make significant changes.

Sinai Hospital opens $55 million expansion Sinai Hospital at 2401 W. Belvedere Ave. in Baltimore opened an "eco-friendly" addition Thursday that includes a 29-bed intensive care unit, a 36-bed intermediate care unit, a helipad and an atrium with a 40-foot waterfall. Hord Coplan Macht of Baltimore designed the $55 million, four-story building called the South Tower Expansion. According to the hospital, the new 87,000-square-foot building features "the area's first hospital roof garden," with low-maintenance plants that are expected to mature in two to three years.

Google announced a plan yesterday that begins to fulfill the pledge it made to investors when it went public nearly four years ago to reserve 1 percent of its profit and equity to "make the world a better place." The beneficiaries of Google's money range from groups that are fighting disease to those developing a commercial plug-in car. The company's philanthropy - Google.org, or DotOrg as Googlers call it - will spend up to $175 million in its first round of grants and investments over the next three years, Google officials said.

For most of the past century, three names - Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller - have defined the world of foundation philanthropy, but that is changing. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with a $30 billion-plus endowment that dwarfs all others, now dominates discussions of philanthropy, and the philanthropic experiments of young billionaires like Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll are studied and mimicked. But the Carnegie Corp. and the Rockefeller Foundation are fighting back, hoping to get more impact for their money, increase their influence and extend their legacies by changing the way they have operated for years.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced yesterday that it will review its investments to determine whether its holdings are socially responsible. In addition to what it called a continuing review of "our approach to investments," the foundation said on its Web site, "we will review other strategies that can fulfill a social responsibility role, both in terms of their aspirations and in understanding the impact that they may have. We will also formalize the process by which Bill and Melinda Gates analyze and review these issues."

Foundation investments $367 million Gates Foundation investments in stocks, bonds or securities of 20 of the top 25 sub-prime lenders and other large sub-prime companies.$1.9 billion The amount of stocks and securities the foundation holds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.$2.2 billion The foundation's overall investments in sub-prime companies or their securities in 2005. [Source: Gates Foundation '05 tax returns]

SEATTLE -- With the goal of producing "a new generation of leaders," Bill and Melinda Gates are giving $1 billion to fund scholarships for minority college students.The amount, $50 million a year for 20 years, matches the largest charitable gift ever, the $1 billion donated to the United Nations by media mogul Ted Turner. The grant comes from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, created last month through a merger of the William H. Gates Foundation and Gates Learning Foundation.It will provide a minimum of 1,000 new students each year with any money they need to pay for their education, beyond any other financial aid they get.The program is a response to anti-affirmative-action measures such as last year's Initiative 200, which prohibits race-based admission policies at Washington state colleges and universities.

Maryland officials have met at least twice with representatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in their effort to persuade the nation's largest private philanthropy to help support the state's education reform effort.State officials disclosed yesterday that Gov. Parris N. Glendening met with the Gates foundation last month when he visited Seattle after a trade mission to South America. Last week, state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick and Glendening's chief of staff, Major F. Riddick Jr., met with foundation officials in Baltimore.