$29 million grant recipient highlights ongoing needs
Howard Lake | 6 August 2009 | News
The grant of $29 million from the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation to Concern Worldwide has prompted Concern’s CEO to remind people that it still needs to raise a lot of money to provide services.
The €29 million grant will support child health initiatives in six developing countries.
“We’ve been trying to make the point that this grant from Gates is for a very specific purpose –maternal and child health – for a specific number of countries; six. And we’re working in 28 countries,” said Tom Arnold, Concern’s CEO.
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“The money they will be providing to us over the next five years represents less than 5 per cent of our budget. So we still need the resources to implement the other 95 per cent,” he said.
Arnold saw the grant – the biggest individual sum Concern has ever received – as a tribute to his organisation’s track record in developing innovative responses to the effects of poverty.
Since it was set up by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda a decade ago, the foundation has dispersed more than $20 billion in grants to improve health and combat poverty around the world and enhance educational opportunities in the US.
Three years ago, Warren Buffett – the second richest man in the US, after Gates – joined forces with the foundation, and has contributed more than $5 billion since then, with the promise of five times as much in the future.
Gates and Buffett, each of whom have a personal fortune estimated at more than $50 billion, expect to give away most of their money during their lifetimes.
www.concern.net
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.