GATES FOUNDATION

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 3 funders to 1 funder, grant income fell $5k → $1k.

5 of 23 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 99% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.

Left out of every figure on this page: $31.3B from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Gates Foundation Trust). These are real filings, and they are not money GATES FOUNDATION raised.

From the IRS filings of GATES FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.

How concentrated its funding is

GATES FOUNDATION leans on a few funders — its largest provides 92% of grant income and the top three 99%; half comes from just 1 funder.

99% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund GATES FOUNDATION.

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 88% · 2018 95% · 2019 97% · 2020 100% · 2021 63% · 2022 100% · 2023 100% — growing more concentrated.

“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.

How long its funders stay

0% of GATES FOUNDATION's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 17% give in more than one year at all.

Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.

Where its funders are

99% of GATES FOUNDATION's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $255k that is directly attributable, 50% of it comes from funders outside Washington, across 13 states.

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $17M arriving through sponsors registered in 4 statesis excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.