Bill Gates's Charity Races to Spend Buffett Billions
Although it has long been the largest grant-making foundation in the nation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is facing an unparalleled challenge: how to give away more money — and do it much faster — than it ever has before.
Largely lost in the June announcement of Warren E. Buffett’s gift of $31 billion to the foundation were its terms. Mr. Buffet will make the contribution in annual increments. For tax reasons, starting in 2009, the foundation must give away every nickel that he contributed in the previous year.
At the current price of the Berkshire Hathaway stock Mr. Buffett will be donating, the foundation will have to distribute $3 billion annually, or a little more than twice what it distributed last year.
“It’s like having a second child,” said Dr. Helene D. Gayle, who left the foundation this year to become president of CARE USA, the international relief group. “It’s not just twice the amount of work; rather, things change in vastly different ways.”...
posted by Whitney Tilson at 6:32 PM
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