The words 'grassroots' and '30 billion dollar endowment' don't generally go together; but in the case of Seattle's own Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation I'm sure happy they do. The fund funnels into three broad categories: Global Development, Global Health, and the United States programs with Seattle and the surrounding areas getting a nice hometown helping.
Most recently, a collaborative grant was awarded to The Washington Families Fund, part of Building Changes, to aid in curbing family homelessness in the greater Seattle area. Nearly half of Washington State's homeless population are families with children. The goal of this grant, supported by a dozen local businesses and government offices, as well as $60 million dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hopes to cut family homelessness rates in half over the next decade. This coalition of public and private supporters joined together in signing a Memorandum of Understanding outlining five guiding principles of their mission: early intervention and prevention; coordinating access to support services; rapid re-housing; tailoring services to meet each family’s individual needs; and increasing economic opportunity through education and workforce services. The grant money will be distributed to programs throughout King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties over the next 10 years.
Its no secret that the organization is funded largely from the personal accounts of Bill and Melinda Gates, which, of course, are raking in millions annually thanks to Microsoft. So if you're reading this on a Windows-operated computer does that mean you're fighting family homelessness? Not quite. But as our world continues to grow, so does poverty, hunger, and corporate corruption. More and more companies today are widening their social responsibility efforts and beginning to fill in the gaps. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, while not officially a branch of Microsoft, is a shining beacon of social responsibility, an example for other global corporations, and perhaps, an incentive for consumers to support companies that work for their communities and not just employ them.
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