For 14 of the last 16 years Bill Gates has been the richest person on earth. More than a decade ago, he decided to start handing over the "large majority" of his wealth – currently £36bn – for the foundation to distribute, so that "the people with the most urgent needs and the fewest champions" in the world, as he and his wife Melinda put it on the foundation website, "grow up healthier, get a better education, and gain the power to lift themselves out of poverty". In 2006, Warren Buffett, currently the third richest person in the world, announced that he too would give a large proportion of his assets to the foundation. Its latest accounts show an endowment of £24bn, making it the world's largest private foundation. It is committed to spending the entire endowment within 50 years of Bill and Melinda Gates's deaths. Last year it awarded grants totalling £2bn.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/12/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation
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