Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grows

Aside from applying for grants, I for one want to keep up with who's who at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Since September they've been hiring on the managerial level and the new faces promise to bring some changes to the way grants are distributed and to whom. Although the Gates's have final say on those issues, I'm told there is a signing limit whereby the smaller (less than $100,000) grants can be awarded by project managers, who are actually available to the lumpen grant seekers.

In an article penned by Kristi Heim for the Seattle Times and published on October 17, new hires were announced. "New hires are flocking to the Gates Foundation, including: Elizabeth Wong, senior program officer for Special Initiatives; Lawrence Yanovitch, senior program officer for Financial Services for the Poor; Teresa Peters, senior program officer for Global Libraries; Amolo Ng'weno, senior program officer for Financial Services for the Poor; Sylvia Mathews, president of the Global Development Program; Roy Steiner, senior program officer for Agricultural Development; Bakari Bakari, director of operations for Global Development Program; Priya Jaisinghani, program officer for Financial Services for the Poor. " These new hires include "a World Bank vice president, a genetic engineer from seed giant Monsanto, the founder of an Internet company in Africa, and the former chief executive of a $100 million cattle-breeding company."

Now that the Foundation has to spend over $3 billion annually (3,000 million dollar grants), more than any federal government program for NGOs. Heim describes the situation thusly:
"New hires are flocking to Seattle from around the country and the world, demonstrating the Foundation's ability to attract top talent. But keeping them all focused on the same goals and values in the midst of such frantic growth is another challenge. The foundation has hired about 100 people since January, 68 of them for newly created positions. It now has 319 employees and the flood of job applications averages about 100 per day."

Evidently Global Development is the department to be in because it is growing the fastest. It's brief: to bolster the nonprofit's work in health and education by improving food production, supporting small business through microcredit, and increasing access to computers and Internet in libraries. Growing to 36 employees in the last five months, the department has so far given away $200 million in grants. Heading it up, Sylvia Mathews, who at 41 has already become a seasoned politico, having served as deputy chief of staff for President Clinton. She's quoted as saying her new hires are "people who are experts in their field but also have a proven track record of devising innovative solutions."

Pay. How much does the richest foundation in America pay its employees? "According to the foundation's most recent tax filing (2005 990), its highest paid employee made about $400,000 a year."

Get out your resumes. They're still hiring, even locally. They want "...people who are really driven by the Mission...with a willingness to tackle some tough things with not a lot of road signs on how to do it. People who are very comfortable with change." The goal of staff training, or indoctrination if you will, is to instill the principles of the Foundation, the core faith being in "the power of science and technology to improve lives."

Although everyone is crowded together in the present digs (even Bill had to take a smaller office), the Foundation will move to new quarters near Seattle Center in 2007 or 2008).

Finally, some philosophy, which I respect: "be humble and mindful." Even if you're rich, have enjoyed a birthright your whole life, have a fabulous education and have always been treated like a genius, keep you eye on the needs of the poor, the ignorant and the sick. They need to have 600 employees, doubling in size by 2008. My heart goes out to them: keep up the good work, be an inspiration to us all (we need it).