Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his philanthropist wife, Melinda, have donated more than $36 billion through their foundation to fund programs related to global health, education, emergency relief, poverty, and more.
Since the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched in 2000, the philanthropists have donated about $2 billion to fight malaria. And in 2014, during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the foundation pledged more than $50 million to help fight the virus.
The foundation has also donated $75 million to create the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance Network, which investigates childhood deaths in developing countries.
In 2016, Bill Gates and other philanthropists pledged to donate $100 million toward eliminating malnutrition in Nigeria. Bill and Melinda also pledged $38 million in grant money to a Japanese pharmaceutical company, which aimed to develop a low-cost polio vaccine.
Melinda Gates has spearheaded an initiative to advance opportunities for women around the world, from expanding the availability of contraception to raising awareness of "time poverty," the concept that hours of unpaid work like household chores rob women of their potential.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also pledged $80 million to support programs that advance gender equality and to gather data on the worldwide gender pay gap.