Seattle, WA. Bill and Melinda Gates have announced that they are ending their twenty-seven-year marriage but will continue to serve as co-chairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives,” the couple tweeted from their respective Twitter accounts on Monday. The foundation has given grants to many Oregon nonprofits including OHSU, local high schools, OMSI and many more.
In 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates join Warren Buffett to create the Giving Pledge, an effort to encourage America’s wealthiest families to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes and charities. By 2020, the Giving Pledge includes more than 200 of the world’s wealthiest individuals, couples, and families across 23 countries.
“Bill and Melinda will remain co-chairs and trustees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” the foundation said in a statement. “No changes to their roles or the organization are planned. They will continue to work together to shape and approve foundation strategies, advocate for the foundation’s issues, and set the organization’s overall direction.” Established in 2000, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is today the world’s largest private foundation, with an endowment of $49.8 billion as of the end of 2019 and an annual grant-making budget of approximately $5 billion.
Married in 1994, Bill and Melinda Gates quickly set about giving to nonprofits. They launched the Gates Library Foundation in 1997.
Building on the belief that the power of personal computing can provide a link to knowledge and productivity for everyone, Bill and Melinda launch the Gates Library Foundation to help all U.S. public libraries offer free internet access. The Gates Library Foundation later became the Gates Learning Foundation which morphed into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2010, the couple, together with Warren Buffett — who pledged in 2006 to give the lion’s share of his fortune to the Gates Foundation — created the Giving Pledge, a campaign to persuade billionaires to publicly commit to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.
In 2015, Melinda Gates launched Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company focused on advancing gender equity, while Bill Gates has had his own investment vehicle, Gates Ventures, since 2008.
The petition for dissolution of marriage filed by Melinda Gates and posted by Yahoo! Finance shows that while the couple did not have a prenuptial agreement when they married in 1994, they do have a separation agreement that sets forth how their possessions, assets, and/or business interests will be divided. The 2021 Forbes World’s Billionaire’s List estimates Bill Gates’s net worth at $133 billion. Bill Gates transferred nearly $2.4 billion worth of stock to Melinda on the day they announced their divorce. According to the New York Times, Melinda Gates is likely to set up a new foundation or directly support the causes she supports if receives a portion of her husband’s Microsoft holdings. MacKenzie Scott, who received shares of Amazon stock worth $36 billion in her divorce from Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, has given nearly $6 billion to philanthropic causes since 2019.
“The Gates Foundation is the most important and influential philanthropic entity in the world today,” Rob Reich, a professor of political science at Stanford University, told the Times. “The divorce may have huge repercussions for the foundation and for its work across the globe.”
Portland, OR. Foundation is a boutique on Northwest 23rd Avenue that donates its profits, after expenses, to one local charity each quarter. This quarter’s beneficiary is Store to Door and the nonprofit hosted an event to kick off the partnership. Erin Riddle, Marcia Blasen, Elizabeth Lott, and Eumi Wymbs were on hand for the event. (Brendan Ffitch, photo credit)
Store to Door is a Portland non-profit that supports independent living for Portland area seniors and adults with disabilities by providing an affordable, personal, volunteer-based grocery shopping and delivery service. In 2018, Store to Door shopped and delivered more than 11,569 grocery orders to more than 682 clients across the Portland metro area.
“All of our nonprofit partners are very important to us,” said Holly Levow, co-founder and CEO of Foundation. “We couldn’t be more excited to help educate the community about their missions and to empower customers to give directly to these important organizations through something they would be doing anyway – shopping for clothes and accessories they love and feel great in.”
Foundation is located at 919 NW 23rd Avenue, Portland.
Foundation opened in August. The boutique gives 100 percent of profits, after expenses, to a featured non-profit partner. Store to Door will receive 100 percent of Foundation profits made from March 7th through June 5th.
“Store to Door is thrilled to be selected as an Impact Partner!” said Kiersten Ware, Store to Door Executive Director. “Foundation’s commitment to creating a more equitable world and their priority around women’s empowerment and health is very much aligned with our mission. 78% of Store to Door’s clients are women and 86% are low-income. Studies have shown that women over 75 are twice as likely to live in poverty than men. And the poverty rate among seniors of color in Multnomah County is 19% – almost twice the rate for the overall senior population. Store to Door is proud to partner with Foundation in its commitment to address these inequities so that all seniors can be nourished, included, and can live in dignity in the setting of their own choice.”
“When creating Foundation, we knew it was important to not only give with purpose but purchase with purpose,” said Chelsea Armstrong, co-founder of Foundation. To learn more about Foundation’s, upcoming events and its quarterly non-profit partners visit: www.foundationpdx.com.
Foundation is a Portland-based boutique with a BIG mission: to champion a wide variety of social movements through a combination of fashion, philanthropy and community dialogue. Each quarter the women of Foundation research and carefully select a non-profit organization whose mission they strongly believe in. Foundation kicks off each partnership with an Impact event, an evening of fashion, philanthropy, food and drinks, that it hopes brings awareness to each organization’s mission. The community is invited to learn about Foundation’s non-profit partners, celebrate their great work and contribute to the cause by shopping the season’s best styles. Foundation donates 100 percent of profits and features ethical and socially conscious brands in its store.
From Store to Door:
Since 1989, Store to Door has supported independent living for Portland area seniors and people with disabilities by providing an affordable, personal, volunteer-based grocery shopping and delivery service. When the program began, five volunteers shopped for twenty-five local seniors. Now, 29 years later, Store to Door serves more than 680 clients more than 11,500 deliveries each year. As a volunteer-based organization, Store to Door relies on more than 1500 volunteers annually, who committed more than 17,000 hours of volunteer time last year.
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