We work on global health—during epidemics and always

But in our rapidly globalizing world, viruses are going to spread faster and further, so pandemic preparedness is something our foundation thinks about a lot.

We recently announced that we’re committing up to $100 million to the coronavirus response. These funds will help countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia strengthen their efforts to detect, isolate, and treat the virus and protect their most vulnerable citizens. We’ll also support the development of new diagnostic tests, drugs, and vaccines.

As with all global health challenges, responding to the coronavirus will require a lot of strategic partnership. That’s why we’ll continue to advocate for international cooperation, collaboration across the public and private sectors, and the strengthening of public health systems in the world’s poorest places.

In our Annual Letter, which came out on Monday, Bill and I take a step back to explain why we decided two decades ago that global health would always be one of our foundation’s top priorities. We also share what we’ve learned about U.S. public education and preview how climate change and gender equality will factor into our work in the years ahead.

As you’ll see in the excerpt below, it all starts with a piece of advice we got from our friend Warren Buffett about the role of philanthropy in unlocking progress. (True to form, he tucked that advice into a baseball metaphor.)

From time to time, I’ll be in touch with more updates like this one to share stories about my work, the people I’m meeting, and the issues I’m following. I look forward to hearing from you, too.

–        Melinda

Excerpt from our 2020 Annual Letter:

For the last 20 years, our foundation has focused on improving health around the world and strengthening the public education system in the United States because we believe that health and education are key to a healthier, better, and more equal world. Disease is both a symptom and a cause of inequality, while public education is a driver of equality.

We know that philanthropy can never—and should never—take the place of governments or the private sector. We do believe it has a unique role to play in driving progress, though.

At its best, philanthropy takes risks that governments can’t and corporations won’t. Governments need to focus most of their resources on scaling proven solutions.

Businesses have fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders. But foundations like ours have the freedom to test out ideas that might not otherwise get tried, some of which may lead to breakthroughs.

As always, Warren Buffett—a dear friend and longtime source of great advice—put it a little more colorfully. When he donated the bulk of his fortune to our foundation and joined us as a partner in its work, he urged us to “swing for the fences.”

That’s a phrase many Americans will recognize from baseball. When you swing for the fences, you’re putting every ounce of strength into hitting the ball as far as possible. You know that your bat might miss the ball entirely—but that if you succeed in making contact, the rewards can be huge.

When you swing for the fences, you’re putting every ounce of strength into hitting the ball as far as possible.

That’s how we think about our philanthropy, too. The goal isn’t just incremental progress. It’s to put the full force of our efforts and resources behind the big bets that, if successful, will save and improve lives.

To be clear, the risks we take are different from the ones the true heroes of global progress take all the time: the health workers who brave war zones to get vaccines to children who need them, the teachers who sign up to work in the most challenging schools, the women in the world’s poorest places who stand up against cultural norms and traditions designed to keep them down. What they do requires personal sacrifices we never have to make—and we try to honor them by supporting innovations that might one day make their lives easier.

In this year’s letter, we write about the work we’ve done on health and education and why we think the risks we’ve taken have set us up for future progress. We also write about two issues that have emerged as priorities for us—the climate crisis and gender equality—and how they will factor into our next 20 years.