My marriage has been on shaky ground over the last 12 months since the pandemic began. At first, it was: “Yay, we get to spend so much time together.” Then that turned into, “Oh. Great. We’re spending so much time together.” But really, whose relationship hasn’t been rocky these days? Have my partner and I thought about splitting up? It came close. Are we working on it? Yes, everyday. But thankfully, the only people really scrutinizing my marriage are my partner and me.  

I’m glad I’m not Bill Gates. In case you haven’t yet heard, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates (who goes by Melinda French now) announced on May 3 that they’re splitting up. The couple said in identical tweets that they had made the decision to end their marriage of 27 years. The announcement took the social impact world by surprise and sent shock waves across the globe.

Now, I don’t typically get into celebrity marriages here, but this is no ordinary couple and they don’t have an ordinary philanthropic foundation. The big question making the rounds last week was: Can a divorcing couple continue to co-steer the world’s largest private foundation together? 

I get it. This break up could have serious implications for the world of impact. The anxiety of discontinued funding is high. The anxiety around potential new funding is high. The anxiety of being forgotten or becoming back of mind is high. 

All of last week, leaders of domestic and international NGOs became anxious about what this would do to their funding and programming. Fundraising professionals became anxious about what this would do to their campaigns. Politicians became anxious about what this would do to their support. And philanthropic organizations became anxious about what this would do to their endowments and donor advised funds. 

This couple could influence government policy, summon heads of state, and raise billions of dollars for a cause overnight — love it or hate it, they became the centre of gravity for the world of impact globally. And as one CBC article noted, “Ending a marriage is always hard on the dependents — and Bill and Melinda Gates have a lot of them.” 

And therein lies the problem: Why are social impact business models tied to the vicissitudes of marriages or the whims of a couple? Is that healthy? Is it a recipe for resilience? Of course not. 

When the couple announced their break up simultaneously on Twitter, the two said they don’t think “we can grow together as a couple” but would continue to work together on their philanthropic activities. The news quickly turned attention to how one of the world’s biggest fortunes, which includes the largest private philanthropic organization in the world, would be divided. 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation started with ambitions that, by its standards today, appear almost quaint: providing free internet access to public libraries in the U.S. As the Gateses’ objectives grew in breadth and scope to focus primarily on education, gender equality and global health, so did the foundation’s power and reach, until it achieved its current position as the largest and most influential private philanthropic institution in the world.

With an endowment of approximately $50 billion US (including Warren Buffett’s gift), 1,600 team members direct approximately $5.1 billion US in annual grants to 135 countries around the globe. By comparison, in Canada, no private family foundation comes even close in the size of endowment to what the Gates Foundation disperses in grants every year. You could say that the Gates Foundation set a new bar for private philanthropy in the 21st century. 

The Gates Foundation is by far one of the most sophisticated philanthropic operations in the world today. I was so intrigued by their vision and ambition that, during my first visit to Seattle years ago, I visited the campus. Yes, it’s a campus. I would describe the environment as a cross between a university campus and a technology company campus. There are beautiful green spaces and walking paths. And — at the centre of the experience is a gorgeous Discovery Center where the public can visit. The Discovery Center has education programs, exhibits, and engagement programs. It’s a museum of the future.  

There is understandable anxiety around the future of a post-divorce Gates Foundation — and whether organizations that rely on it should worry. There is also anxiety around any Mackenzie Scott-type massive unrestricted gifts from Melinda French that could become a subject of controversy. Big philanthropic gifts and big philanthropic foundations are in some ways emblematic of what’s coming. One day soon, it’s likely that there will be dozens of foundations at least approaching this kind of scale of endowment and reach, and almost all of them will have living donors behind them like Bill Gates and Melinda French. 

However, if the business models for creating lasting change are dominated by big philanthropy or the whims of powerful couples or their marital breakups, something is deeply wrong about how we go about the work of social impact. Critical questions are emerging: Does big philanthropy increase or decrease the overall financial resilience of social impact organizations? What are the operational effects of donor dependence in our business models? What does it mean to build resilient organizations coming out of COVID?

We didn’t time it this way but the day after the Gateses’ announcement, Future of Good announced our first-ever editorial fellowship on transforming funding models. Inaugural fellow Bronwyn Oatley will spend a year covering and reporting on funding and business model adaptations in non-profits and philanthropy. They’ll dive into the emerging and dominant logics, narratives, worldviews, governance practices, and business models as well as shine a light on funding-related elephant-in-the-room questions circling the NGO, INGO and philanthropic worlds. You can reach Bronwyn with any ideas here. 

Let’s worry less about nuptial agreements or whether Bill and Melinda can successfully co-parent the foundation they created, and instead focus more on how to make the business models of organizations like yours more resilient for a new era of impact.

Vinod Rajasekaran

Publisher & CEO 

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