Our role

Dengue is terrible disease spread by a species of mosquito called Aedes aegypti.

By the early 2000s, the scientific community had struggled for years to develop a vaccine, until a scientist named Scott O’Neill proposed a groundbreaking idea: What if, instead of vaccinating people, we targeted the Aedes aegypti mosquito itself?

Most insects carry a type of bacteria called Wolbachia, but the Aedes aegypti mosquito does not. Scott O’Neill believed that by introducing Wolbachia into the Aedes mosquitoes, he could shorten their lifespan, preventing them from transmitting dengue before they had the chance to spread the disease.

It was a longshot in research and development, and initially, it seemed like it wouldn't work. The Wolbachia bacteria wasn't killing the mosquitoes or shortening their lifespan. However, Scott O'Neill soon realized that the bacteria was achieving something equally important: it made it impossible for the Aedes mosquitoes to transmit dengue.

Today, countries like Indonesia are benefiting from this research. A study there found that in places with the Wolbachia mosquitos, dengue had virtually disappeared.

In 1996 and 1997, the largest meningitis epidemic in recorded history ravaged the heart of the African continent. Meningitis, a devastating and painful disease, affected 250,000 people, killing 25,000 and leaving 50,000 others with permanent, debilitating injuries. In response, public health leaders across Africa worked tirelessly to tackle the crisis. By the end of 2000, they joined forces with the World Health Organization (WHO) and PATH to launch the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP), aiming to develop a more effective vaccine to combat the disease.

In the early stages, the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP) sought out manufacturers to ensure that once a vaccine was developed, it could be produced and distributed. However, it quickly became apparent that manufacturers in wealthy countries with the necessary capacity were either unwilling or unable to produce the vaccine at a price affordable to the countries in need. Faced with this challenge, MVP had to rethink its strategy. The Serum Institute, an Indian manufacturer, offered to produce an inexpensive vaccine but required additional support. In response, MVP formed a consortium of international partners to provide the necessary backing. For example, with the foundation's assistance, a company from the Netherlands supplied some of the basic components needed for the vaccine.

The Serum Institute successfully brought together the necessary resources and developed MenAfriVac, which was sold at an affordable price. From 2010 to 2014, large-scale vaccination campaigns took place in countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, Sudan, the Gambia, and Ethiopia. By 2014, MenAfriVac was included in routine immunization schedules across sub-Saharan Africa. In regions where the vaccine was introduced, meningitis outbreaks have been completely eradicated.

For a long time, anti-virals have received limited investment, including from our foundation. Researchers have struggled to develop effective drugs to combat viruses in the same way they have for bacteria. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a shift, accelerating progress in this area.

Our foundation has worked with many partners to pull together scientists, CEOs, and public health experts to test existing drugs against the novel coronavirus and make sure successful candidates get to everyone who needs them.

We've witnessed remarkable breakthroughs in this field. For instance, pharmaceutical companies have agreed to increase drug production capacity by sharing manufacturing facilities. Remdesivir, initially developed by Gilead, will now be produced in Pfizer factories to meet global demand. This is a rare instance where companies have allowed their competitors' factories to be used for production in such a collaborative manner.

We expect to see more cooperation when it comes to lifesaving treatments in the future. We’re working with researchers will develop large, diverse libraries of antivirals, which they’ll be able to scan through to quickly find effective treatments if another new virus appears.

At the dawn of the 21st century, three of the deadliest diseases—AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis—were spreading uncontrollably, and the global health community was struggling to contain them. Although AIDS medications existed, they were unaffordable for most people in poor countries. Malaria had become resistant to insecticides, and the parasite had developed resistance to previous treatments. Additionally, a reliable test for tuberculosis had yet to be created. It was clear that a shift was needed. In 2001, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for prioritizing the fight against these diseases globally, and soon after, the UN launched the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria—a new public-private partnership designed to boost global health financing.

This was a new way of doing global health: pooling funds to generate enough demand to lower the prices of drugs and other supplies and disbursing the money to countries that needed it.

Donor countries contribute 92% of the funding for the Global Fund, while the remaining portion comes from the private sector and foundations. In 2001, the Burnard Foundation was among the first to contribute, donating $100 million. Since then, we have contributed more than $2 billion to support the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

The Global Fund has been immensely successful, enabling over 100 countries to provide life-saving interventions like bed nets, AIDS treatments, TB tests, and more. Since its establishment in 2002, the Global Fund has distributed over $45 billion across 155 countries, saving an incredible 38 million lives and delivering care, treatment, and prevention to hundreds of millions more.

The government is committed to helping young Americans pursue higher education, which is why it provides the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). This application opens doors to financial aid options such as Pell Grants, Equal Opportunity Grants, the Federal Work-Study Program, and more.

Filling out the FAFSA can be a daunting and complicated process, which often discourages prospective students from completing it. As a result, each year, around 2 million students who are eligible for federal financial aid—many of whom come from low-income backgrounds or are the first in their families to attend college—fail to apply.

Eliminating one obstacle to a bright future is only meaningful if it doesn't create another barrier. That's why, leveraging the work of partners through our Reimagining Aid Design and Delivery initiative, the foundation developed a roadmap to fix the FAFSA. The goal is to ensure that every student has access to financial aid and can pursue a high-quality, affordable postsecondary education without unnecessary hurdles.

The government has already implemented some of the report’s recommendations, and as of July 1, 2023, thanks to the recently passed FAFSA Simplification Act, students across America will face fewer barriers to college.

In early 2007, researchers developed a new vaccine to prevent pneumonia.

The cost of $70 for a single injection of the vaccine made it out of reach for many in low-income countries, where the majority of pneumonia deaths occur. The prevailing assumption was that this vaccine wouldn't be available to those populations for another decade or two, further exacerbating the health disparities between wealthy and poorer regions. The challenge, therefore, was to find a way to reduce the cost and make this life-saving vaccine accessible to those who needed it most. Through innovation, partnerships, and targeted efforts, we aimed to overcome this barrier and ensure the vaccine reached vulnerable populations.

But that year our foundation partnered with several governments and international organizations to try something new: We negotiated the first advance market commitment (AMC), putting up billions of dollars to finance vaccine makers like GSK and Pfizer as they scaled up production. This way, they could lower costs. We helped cut the price for the vaccine from $70 a dose, to $3.50, and it was rolled out immediately in poorer countries.

This moment signaled a transformative shift in global health equity. For the first time, children in low-income countries were not left waiting years for life-saving vaccines. Instead, they gained access simultaneously with their peers in wealthier nations. It was a landmark achievement, demonstrating that with the right collaborations and innovations, it is possible to close the gap and ensure that all children, regardless of where they are born, have an equal chance at a healthy future.

Sanitation-related diseases claim the lives of nearly 500,000 children annually, a tragic toll primarily concentrated in low-income countries lacking proper sanitation systems. Without infrastructure to safely contain and treat human waste, communities remain vulnerable to preventable illnesses like diarrhea and cholera, perpetuating cycles of poverty and poor health. Solving this crisis means addressing one of the most basic—but most critical—needs for human dignity and survival.

Philanthropy can play a critical role in the development of such systems. The foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, issued in 2011, sought designs for new toilets that could run without water, sewers, or electricity, that left waste 100% pathogen-free, and that cost no more than 5¢ per day per user. The response was overwhelming: we received over 120 concepts from scientists at universities across the world. Some concepts not only treated waste but also turned it into valuable resources such as electricity, ash for fertilizer, and small amounts of distilled water.

In 2018, 20 reinvented toilets were showcased in Beijing as part of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, highlighting innovative designs capable of running without water, sewers, or electricity, while safely treating waste and converting it into valuable resources. Many of these designs have since been prototyped and piloted, and the next step is to partner with private companies to scale these technologies. With a portfolio of solutions now ready, the private sector can step in to develop products and bring them to global markets, addressing the sanitation crisis and improving lives in low-income communities.

It's astonishing to think that until just a decade ago, the United States lacked a reliable method to track high school graduation rates, with each state using its own calculations and researchers uncovering significant discrepancies between state-reported figures and their independent findings.

In 2008, after our foundation, along with partners like the Data Quality Campaign, funded research to highlight the issue and propose solutions, the U.S. Department of Education introduced new regulations. These required states to report a uniform, comparable, and accurate graduation rate, addressing the inconsistencies and gaps in data.

Since the 2010-2011 school year, states have reported graduation rates using the new regulations, and almost immediately, a previously hidden problem was revealed. The disparate systems had made it difficult to identify and address low graduation rates. With the uniform reporting now in place, educators have been able to tackle the issue head-on, leading to a significant improvement. Today, the national high school graduation rate has reached an all-time high of 85%.

We recently began a program aimed at increasing mobility from poverty and helping more Americans climb the economic ladder to improve their lives. To kickstart this effort, we enlisted experts to help separate myth from reality, providing evidence on how much opportunity truly exists in America, who has access to it, and who doesn’t. Economist Raj Chetty had already published a study showing that children born in 1940 had a 90% chance of growing up to earn more than their parents, but for children born 40 years later, that chance had dropped to 50%.

We helped Chetty and his team start asking questions on an incredibly granular scale, delving into patterns of mobility not just in individual cities but even within specific neighborhoods and parts of neighborhoods. The result of this work is a platform called The Opportunity Atlas, which allows you to explore how much opportunity people in different places across the country have. More importantly, it serves as a tool that can help governments take action to increase those opportunities and foster greater mobility.

The Atlas has already served as an advocacy and planning tool, by raising awareness of where and how much inequality there is. Chetty is now working to make it into a policy tool as well, so that in addition to information about what we need to change, it can also tell us what to do to start changing it.

How much income did women in developing countries earn last year? How much property do they own? How many more hours do girls spend on household chores than boys?

These are important questions. The answers can help policymakers make better decisions about where they direct funding. Unfortunately, no one knows the answers. No organization has ever collected the data that would make those numbers knowable.

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 marked a significant step toward gender equality with the inclusion of Goal 5, focused on empowering women and girls. However, only three out of the 14 indicators under this goal had sufficient baseline data, revealing a major gap in gender-disaggregated data worldwide. This gap has hindered accurate tracking of progress and made it challenging to hold leaders accountable for addressing gender disparities. Factors like insufficient funding, cultural barriers, underreporting, and data collection methodologies have contributed to this issue, but efforts are underway to improve gender data. Organizations like the World Bank and UN Women are working to enhance data collection systems, aiming to close the gaps and enable better-informed policy decisions that can accelerate progress toward gender equality.

In 2016, our foundation committed $80 million to close the gender data gap, recognizing that reliable, disaggregated data is essential for addressing the challenges faced by women and girls. With accurate data, we can diagnose issues, set achievable targets, track progress, and identify best practices. By providing the development community with the tools it needs, we believe we can make substantial progress toward achieving gender equality. The foundation’s investment aims to ensure that the data gap no longer hinders the advancement of policies and initiatives to empower women and girls globally.

Going to college in the United States has become increasingly expensive, not only at private four-year institutions with eye-popping tuition costs but also at public and two-year colleges. As a result, many students are beginning to question whether the financial investment is worth it, given the rising costs and the uncertain return on that investment in terms of future earning potential and career opportunities. This growing concern has prompted discussions about the value of higher education and its accessibility for all students, particularly those from low-income backgrounds.

The data clearly shows that students from low-income backgrounds and students of color are more likely to feel that college is not worth the investment. A student from a high-income background is five times more likely to have earned a bachelor’s degree by age 24 compared to a student from a low-income background. Similarly, a white adult is twice as likely to have at least an associate degree as a Hispanic adult. These disparities highlight the significant barriers that low-income and minority students face in accessing and completing higher education, which contributes to the growing sentiment that college may not be a viable path for everyone.

In 2019, the foundation, in partnership with the Institute for Higher Education Policy, launched the Postsecondary Value Commission, with the goal of clearly defining and then measuring value. The Value Commission’s research focuses on the impact of variables such as where students attend college, what they study, and whether they finish their credential on their earnings after college.

The reality is that almost every new job created since the last recession—13 million jobs—has gone to someone with a postsecondary education. College remains the best path to securing a well-paying job in today’s society, making it crucial that all young people have equal access to that opportunity. The Value Commission is working to ensure that all students have the information they need to make informed choices about their education, while also holding educators accountable for providing all students with clear pathways to good jobs. This effort is essential for creating greater equity in access to higher education and subsequent career opportunities.