The Charitable Side of Silicon Valley

With a higher annual GDP than the entire country of Finland, Silicon Valley holds a disproportionate amount of the world’s wealth. Many successful tech moguls have decided to pay it forward, either by donating here and there to causes they believe in, or by starting their own organization to drive their impact. Many billionaires have even publicly promised to donate the majority of their wealth over their lifetime through The Giving Pledge. Let’s take a look at how prominent figures in the tech industry are leaving their mark on the world.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Mission: “Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives.”

Named “the most generous philanthropists in America” by Business Insider, Bill and Melinda Gates have set the bar high for tech billionaires trying to make an impact. According to the foundation’s website, the couple started out their charitable giving with the Gates Library Foundation in 1997, where they focused on trying to get free internet access for all public libraries across the US. However, they were inspired to expand to global causes after reading a newspaper article about the millions of children in third-world countries who die from preventable diseases. They started consulting with experts and locals, as well as researching disease and poverty.

Since then, the organization has grown to over 1600 employees and over $50 billion in grant payments. In 2002, they pledged $100 million to the Global Fund to fight life-threatening diseases, saving 38 million lives. They later started their own project called the Global Health Division, where they hope to eradicate illnesses like malaria and tuberculosis by supporting access to healthcare tools, funding research to develop new technologies, and increasing access to health interventions for those in need.

Today, the organization has a number of divisions, all with different goals. Through their Global Development Division, they’ve pursued projects that aim to help individuals in developing populations. Its goal is to fund efficient solutions to reduce health inequities through areas like emergency response development, family planning, global libraries, and nutrition. Through a related area, the Global Growth & Opportunity Division, they strive to provide economic opportunity for those same populations.

Additionally, they’ve made an impact in domestic communities with their United States Division, which helps prepare high schoolers for college with an opportunity to get a post-secondary education. They’ve also tried to make organizational change with the Global Policy & Advocacy Division, which promotes policies that advance the foundation’s work by building strategic alliances with government figures and fostering public awareness of global issues.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Mission: “To advance human potential and promote equality by focusing on curing disease, connecting people, building strong communities and improving education.”

To kick off their organization, Zuckerberg and Chan released an open letter to their daughter Max about how they wanted to leave the world a better place for her generation. They also pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook shares to charity over the course of their lifetimes.

Today, the initiative has over 500 employees and has made a widespread impact through its grants and programs. The charity focuses on three key areas: education, justice and opportunity, and science. Through its educational focus, the initiative is partnered with Gradient Learning to build tools for educators and students. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) works with the staff to ensure that the resources that it develops are supported by research. It also leads the tech development of Gradient Learning’s Summit Learning program, as well as provides funding to help the organization offer its resources for free to schools.

In order to work toward justice and opportunity across the US, the CZI focuses on programs that promote criminal justice reform, housing affordability, and immigration reform. This past January, it announced a pledge to invest $100 million to FWD.us over the next three years.

Finally, the organization pursues scientific advancement by collaborating with researchers to build tools for biomedical research. The tools they develop have helped the scientific community in their efforts to better analyze, visualize, and share data.

Larry Ellison Foundation

Mission: “To support nonprofit organizations who create sustainable benefits for the people they serve. We invest in innovative medical research, educational initiatives that create lifelong achievement, and programs addressing the needs of our community's most vulnerable families.”

As one of the richest people in the world, Larry Ellison has a big opportunity to make an impact with his organization. However, he’s been met with more criticism than admiration from many onlookers, as his foundation has been the subject of several scandals over the years.

In August 2020, Vox’s Recode published an article about how his foundation has acted erratically and sometimes questionably in the past. For example, in 2001, he faced two lawsuits after selling $1 billion in Oracle stock just before it released a poor earnings report. He eventually won the lawsuit, but many were suspicious of the fact that two of the deciding committee’s members were Stanford professors, especially because the situation occurred in the midst of Ellison public deciding between Stanford or Harvard as a recipient of a $150 million donation.

Aside from the controversies, Ellison’s foundation has used its funding to make a difference in areas like health, education, and conservation. Through a partnership with Teach for All, it has aimed to improve schools and education for students around the world. It has also partnered with the San Diego Zoo to lead global research on saving endangered rhino species, as well as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to deliver vaccines to 100 million children worldwide.

However, many agree that Ellison still has a long way to go before he catches up with other leading philanthropists. While he made a pledge to donate 95% of his wealth to charitable causes, some estimate that he donated $500 million to his foundation between 1997 and 2020.

Bezos Family Foundation

Mission: “To invest in the science of learning and the experiences that youth need from birth to high school to pursue their own path for success.”

While this foundation was founded by the parents of billionaire Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO does serve on the board. At an estimated 35 employees, its operations are quite a bit smaller than the rest of its tech counterparts, but it’s mainly focused on child development and education. Its website states that it hopes to help young people reach their full potential so they can meaningfully contribute to society.

The foundation's program, Vroom, helps provide science-based tips and tools to inspire families to boost their child’s learning during everyday moments. It also issues grants to support researchers, educators, and nonprofit organizations who are exploring early learning and adolescence. Another project called Mind in the Making spreads the word about the science of children’s brain development and translates the information into training and learning materials. Lastly, Students Rebuild is program that creates challenges to inspire young people to learn about and take action to address critical global issues.

They also run the Bezos Scholars program, which is a year-long program aimed at building leadership skills, social-emotional learning, and social innovation in their participants. Its applications are open to those with a passion for making a difference, and those selected receive mentorship, leadership development training, college advising, online tutoring, and $1,000 in funding toward launch a project to make a difference in their community.

Michael and Susan Dell Foundation

Mission: “To fund initiatives that seek to foster active minds, healthy bodies and a safe environment where children can thrive.”

Michael and Susan Dell built their organization based on the idea that “potential is equally distributed; opportunity is not.” For that reason, they made it their foundation’s goal to give everyone the chance to achieve their full potential. Similar to the Bezos Family Foundation, they’re especially committed to helping young people.

The foundation focuses on five key areas: children’s health, education, safety, youth development, and early childcare. It’s laid out clear goals and success metrics for each of these categories. For example, it aims to create opportunities for at least 5 million low-income students across the globe to attend high-quality schools each year. It’s also set goals on a domestic scale, promising to provide pathways out of poverty for over 500,000 low-income families in Central Texas and the greater Boston area.

In addition to its programs, the Dell Foundation has issued grants through partnerships with organizations focused on creating opportunities for children and families living in urban poverty.

Silicon Valley’s Favorite Philanthropies

Even outside of the multi-billionaire founders, many companies in tech are also committed to philanthropy. From matching employee donations to allotting paid volunteer hours, many organizations institute a variety of programs to make an impact. While many of them are satisfied with making difference in any area, others are committed to specific causes.

Education and career development programs

As tech companies, furthering education and job training isn’t just in their wheelhouse, but it can also be an investment in future cohorts of employees and leadership. That’s probably one reason why many of Silicon Valley giants are focused on helping students in tech through the following organizations:

• FIRST
• Girls4Tech
• Amazon Future Engineering program
• Nvidia Techsplorer
• Malala Fund
• Junior Achievement
• Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship

Racial equality

Silicon Valley is well-known for its lack of diversity, and especially after the events that unfolded in the summer of 2020, many companies decided they needed to step up. Google, for example, committed $5 million to organizations working to address racial and geographic disparities in vaccinations. Its website also boasts of committing $12 million and 10,000 volunteer hours to racial justice. Additionally, since 2015, it’s given $32 million in funding to organizations that use data science to advance racial justice. In June of 2020, Netflix also made a $100 million commitment to support Black communities by putting 2% of its cash holdings into financial institutions and organizations that would further that mission.

Fighting hunger

With all of the free and subsidized meals in many Silicon Valley offices, employees understand the importance of being well-fed. For that reason, many companies are actively involved with organizations that aim to provide food for those in need, including Feeding America, the World Food Programme, and Amazon’s Help for Hunger.