SEARCHING

About the Data

Find out where the grant data comes from, and what years and philanthropies are included.

How to Search

Information, tips and tricks for making your search more successful

Search

Grants – search grants based on their stated purpose
Recipients – search all grants to a particular recipient
Funders – search for organizations or individuals that are funding grants
People – search for people who benefit from grant funds
Website – search the website for specific text
Advanced search – specifiy multiple criteria
All-in-one search – search the website and the database at the same time for specific text

MEDIA TRANSPARENCY

Sign-up for our newsletter

Register

Only registered visitors are allowed to email content or post comments

Support Media Transparency

Your help is essential to this website

AROUND THE WEB

LA Times
January 6, 2007
Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders and Robyn Dixon

The dark cloud over Bill Gates' Foundation

Investments hurt many of the people grants aim to help.

Using the most recent data available, a Times tally showed that hundreds of Gates Foundation investments — totaling at least $8.7 billion, or 41% of its assets, not including U.S. and foreign government securities — have been in companies that countered the foundation's charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.

This is "the dirty secret" of many large philanthropies, said Paul Hawken, an expert on socially beneficial investing who directs the Natural Capital Institute, an investment research group. "Foundations donate to groups trying to heal the future," Hawken said in an interview, "but with their investments, they steal from the future."

Also see:

Part II: The Gates Foundation invests heavily in sub-prime lenders and other businesses that undercut its good works.

Read the story >