The Gates Foundation’s journey began in Washington state.
When the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched in 2000, Bill and Melinda chose to establish their philanthropic roots at the place they called home: Seattle.
Bill Gates Sr., the first employee of the newly formed foundation and an early philanthropist in the 1950s, helped set the tone for our local work—directing resources to issues like family homelessness, education and scholarships, and early learning. Bill Gates Sr.’s legacy and commitment to showing up and giving back stays with us today.
We’re committed to giving back to the region that has given us so much.
Inspired by Bill Gates Sr.’s commitment to show up for his neighbors, Bill and Melinda prioritized investments in Washington state in the Gates Foundation’s early days.
The same year our foundation launched, we created the Sound Families Initiative to address family homelessness in the Puget Sound region, an issue that we felt deserved more resources and attention. Sound Families helped build more than 1,450 transitional homes for families—and inspired us to make a decade of additional investments to improve the crisis response system for people who entered into homelessness. We continue to fund local solutions to this complex issue today through our Community Engagement work.
Across the state, we’ve invested in scholarship programs, helped strengthen our state’s early learning system, and funded a range of other education solutions for more than 20 years. While our strategies have evolved over the years, education remains the core focus of our grantmaking across Washington.
Each year, we make grants totaling nearly $40 million to support communities, students, and families in Washington state. Our investments continue to be inspired by what community members and our partners prioritize—and what our colleagues are learning in our national education and economic mobility work.