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News/Event Item
Warren Buffett Pledges Billions to Gates Foundation
Press Release
Contact: Laura Barnitz, Global Health Council
202.833.5900 x3204 or lbarnitz@globalhealth.org
June 26, 2006
New York, NY - Billionaire Warren Buffett announced this weekend that he will begin contributing up to 85 percent of his stock in his company, Berkshire Hathaway, to five foundations next month. The largest proportion of Buffett's approximately $37 billion gift will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which currently spends the majority of its funding on global health initiatives.
The contributions by Buffett will vary by year with the price of company stock shares, but could more than double the $29 billion endowment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Having already invested nearly $6 billion on groundbreaking global health projects, the Gates Foundation has been a leader in developing and supporting innovative means of addressing diseases that ravage some of the poorest countries, including HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
When asked about giving to the Gates Foundation in an interview with Fortune, Buffett explained "...if your goal is to return the money to society by attacking truly major problems that don't have a commensurate funding base - what could you find that's better than turning to a couple of people who are young, who are ungodly bright, whose ideas have been proven, who already have shown an ability to scale it up and do it right?"
"The community of global health practitioners and activists sees this as a historic world-changing moment," stated Dr. Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council. "The combined philanthropy of Warren Buffett's donation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is absolutely unprecedented, and makes them the pace-setter for all governments and charitable foundations across the globe. Over the next generation, the impact will be felt in the lives of hundreds of millions of the worlds poorest citizens who will no longer live in fear that their children will not survive to healthy and productive adulthood, in women who will no longer live in fear of their next unplanned pregnancy, and in the growth of a worldwide consensus that decent basic health care is a human right that can in fact be realized everywhere."
Buffett will join the Board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but does not expect to play a large role in the Foundation's spending decisions. Buffett will give a smaller amount of his shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late wife, which focuses on family planning and reproductive choice, and to foundations run by his children.
More information:
Warren Buffett Gives Away His Fortune (Fortune Exclusive)
http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazines/fortune/charity1.fortune/index.htm
Buffett to Give Bulk of Fortune to Gates Charity (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/business/26buffett.html
Gates Foundation to Get Bulk of Buffett's Fortune (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/25/AR2006062500801.html
View this press release in PDF format (121K)
category: Global Health Council News : Announcements
contributed by Andrea Welch on 19 June 2006
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