Posted on December 30, 2005

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Foundations, Individuals Target Healthier, Happier World

Global health issues and access to higher education garnered the most attention and funding from American foundations and philanthropists in 2005, as multi- million-dollar grants supporting new approaches to global health challenges and awards to support financial aid at various colleges and universities made headlines during the year.

Occupying center stage was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which in May announced $250 million in new funding for its Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative. Launched in 2003 in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, the initiative seeks to apply innovations in science and technology to the greatest health problems confronting the developing world. A month later, the foundation and NIH announced forty-three grants totaling $436.6 million through the initiative for projects that address a series of challenges, including the development of improved childhood vaccines, new ways of preventing the transmission of diseases by insects, ways to prevent drug resistance, and developing methods to treat latent and chronic infections such as tuberculosis. "It's shocking how little research is directed toward the diseases of the world's poorest countries," said Bill Gates at the time of the announcement. "By harnessing the world's capacity for scientific innovation, I believe we can transform health in the developing world and save millions of lives."

Advancing medical research closer to home figured prominently in the grantmaking plans of a number of foundations, including the New York City-based Starr Foundation, which in May announced a $50 million grant to three New York City-area medical institutions to support embryonic stem cell research. In December, the Charlottesville-based Ivy Foundation awarded $45 million to the University of Virginia Health System to create additional laboratory space for biomedical research. And, combining their interest in health and education, Eli and Edythe Broad announced in December a $100 million commitment through their Los Angeles-based foundation to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to support the institute's research in genomic medicine.

Support for higher education was the theme when six of the country's largest philanthropic enterprises — the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford, Rockefeller, MacArthur, Hewlett, and Mellon foundations — announced, in September, a joint $200 million grant for a five-year initiative designed to advance higher education and development in Africa. Building on the Partnership to Strengthen African Universities initiative, launched in 2000 by Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, and MacArthur, the initiative will support efforts to increase and, at the same time, lower the cost of Internet bandwidth for a consortium of African universities. Nurturing the school he founded, George Soros pledged $202.4 million to Central European University to further its mission of promoting open societies.

Closer to home, the Duke Endowment in Charlotte, North Carolina, awarded $75 million to Duke University toward an endowment that supports financial aid. Given anonymously by an unspecified number of donors, the largest gift to support financial aid was $100 million to Yale University's music school. Then there's the Gates Foundation, which awarded $40 million to Bill Gates's high school alma mater, the Lakeside School in Seattle.

Finally, as is the case every year, major arts institutions received their share of sizable grants and bequests in 2005. Among the most notable was a $45 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for the ongoing renovation of the Old Patent Office Building, and a $50 million grant, also from Reynolds, for a new performing arts center in Las Vegas. Oil heiress Caroline Weiss Law bequeathed between $400 million and $450 million to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, while the Dallas Museum of Arts received nearly $1 billion in cash and artwork from seven donors. In California, the Getty Trust received a collection of twenty-eight modern sculptures valued at $75 million from the Ray Stark Revocable Trust. The source of an annual anonymous $20 million gift through the Carnegie Corporation to local New York City arts groups, was identified as Mayor Michael Bloomberg. And areas within the newest wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston will bear the name of Ruth and Carl Shapiro, whose family foundation continued its support with a $15 million grant toward the museum's capital campaign.

Broad Foundation Awards $100 Million to Broad Institute of MIT, Harvard (12/01/05)

Yale to Receive $100 Million Gift for Music School (11/04/05)

Gates Foundation Pledges $258 Million for Malaria R&D (11/01/05)

Cleveland Clinic Receives $70 Million for New Heart Center (9/26/05)

Six Foundations Will Partner to Advance Higher Education in Africa (9/16/05)

Analogic Founder to Give $120 Million to Massachusetts Nonprofits (7/21/05)

George Soros Pledges $202.4 Million to Central European University (7/06/05)

Gates Foundation Awards $436 Million for Global Health Projects (6/29/05)

Gates, Broad Foundations Fund $45 Million Education Web Site (3/31/05)