This impactful philanthropy has an expiration date

October 29, 2025Last Updated: October 29, 2025

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This impactful philanthropy has an expiration date

By Stephanie Mehta | Published: 2025-10-27 11:00:00 | Source: Fast Company – leadership

This impactful philanthropy has an expiration date

Hello and welcome The modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and Chief Content Officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week, this newsletter explores comprehensive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from pages… a company. and Fast company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to receive it yourself.

Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation, faces a rare leadership challenge: He runs an organization that has announced its intention to spend $200 billion over the next 20 years — double what the organization spent in its first 25 years — while working to close its doors permanently on December 31, 2045.

The finality of the scope of his mandate actually provides clarity and focus, says Suzman, who joined the foundation in 2007 as director of global development policy, advocacy and special initiatives, and became CEO in 2020. “It allows us to be very predictable and reliable for the next two decades,” he says. “This is a luxury for a CEO.”

With clarity comes focus

basis Sunset announced earlier this year, accelerating a closing process that Suzman says was always part of the organization’s long-term plan. At the time of the announcement, Chairman and Board Member Bill Gates said the nonprofit would focus its efforts on three areas: ending preventable deaths of mothers and children, eliminating deadly infectious diseases, and putting millions of people on a path to economic prosperity.

This means that some programs will “graduate” or be reworked. Some existing initiatives that fall outside focus areas or may not be achievable by 2045 are moving to new partnerships. For example, the Foundation’s work to advance the technology and tools needed to expand economic opportunities for Americans has become part of these efforts Next ladder projectsa coalition of philanthropic organizations including the Ballmer Group (co-founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer), the Valhalla Foundation, Stand Together, and others.

Leading through change

I asked Suzman about leading a team of more than 2,000 mission-oriented employees — some of whom saw projects as deprioritized — during such a long transition period. He stresses that the institution has always had to make difficult choices. “When you’re part of an organization that has a broader set of goals, there are going to be trade-offs — trade-offs about how we allocate our internal resources, how we allocate Bill’s voice,” he says. “We work on this by trying to bring people into our common set of goals.”

He also echoed a common phrase I hear from almost every executive trying to steer an organization through massive change: “You can never over-communicate enough,” he says. “You have to continue to drive that message through every channel possible, internal and external, to help people see the connections and understand that you know how they all come together toward the larger goal of the organization.”

The institution’s phasing out follows major changes to its structure. In 2024, Warren Buffett, who has donated $48 billion since 2006, said the foundation would not receive a contribution upon his death. That same year, Melinda French Gates resigned as co-chairman after 24 years, receiving $12.5 billion from Bill Gates for her independent philanthropy. In January 2025, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was renamed the Gates Foundation, and Bill Gates became its sole president.

A message to the next generation

This announcement also coincides with challenges facing some of the issues the foundation has championed, including vaccines and international aid. Suzman points out that the Gates Foundation is now the largest funder of the World Health Organization after President Donald J. Trump’s initiative. Executive order Withdrawal from the World Health Organization.

Suzman emphasizes that philanthropy should not be limited to providing resources to health and humanitarian organizations that governments have historically supported. But he also urges a new generation of entrepreneurs and founders to start their own giving journeys.

“I am the beneficiary of the incredible generosity of Bill, Warren and Melinda.” . . “They themselves talk a lot about how important philanthropy is to them,” Suzman says. “We just hope there are more people who follow our example,” he adds. “The world desperately needs it.”

Sailing into the sunset

Have you ever had to lead the liquidation process of a company or organization? How did you do that, and how did you keep employees engaged? Send me your stories at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com for possible use in a future newsletter.

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(tags for translation) Gates Foundation

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