Key Takeaways 

Parul Christian, Professor in Department of International Health and Director of Program in Human Nutrition, and Bill Moss, Professor in the Departments of Epidemiology, International Health and molecular Microbiology and Immunology, discuss their experiences securing funding from the Gates Foundation and strategies to consider during your application process. 

Staff to assist with fundraising: Cecilia Meisner, Director of Corporate & Foundation Relations, Office of External Affairs, BSPH; Laura Runyan, Senior Associate Director of Foundation Relations, Office of Foundation Relations, JHU Development & Alumni Relations.
 

What makes the Gates Foundation different? 

• Working with the Gates Foundation is based on long-standing, personal relationships. These relationships with program officers are key to finding new projects and receiving funding again in the future.  

• While the Foundation issues grand challenges for ideation, in most cases these don’t lead to follow-on funding. 

• Most funding is done without RFPs: it is relationship-based, not transactional. 

• With a few exceptions like K-12 education, the Foundation does not fund domestically focused (US) work. 

• Past awards have included monthly meetings with the program officer to cultivate close personal relationships.  

• Applications that have been requested by the Foundation will usually receive feedback from a program officer and can be edited and submitted for re-consideration.  

The Gates Foundation approach 

• The Foundation has shifted in recent years to prioritize funding to in-country partners, awarding less to academic institutions based in the United States and other high-income countries.  

• The Foundation is organized into teams, each of which operates with a specific annual strategy that is developed with external input and internal expertise and then approved by the Foundation Trustees.  

• Team leaders and program directors are subject matter experts. 

• Program officers are responsible for helping execute the team’s strategy. To do so, they will often call upon previous Foundation grantees. The grantee partnership is a key part of how program officers “do business,”

• There are several teams relevant to research at BSPH:  

  • Gender Equality 

  • Adolescents and Social Norms 

  • Digital Connectivity 

  • Family Planning 

  • Gender Data & Insights 

  • Gender Integration 

  • Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (MNCH) 

  • MNCH Discovery & Tools 

  • Women in Leadership 

  • Women’s Economic Empowerment 

  • Women’s Health Innovations 

• Global Development  

  • Emergency Response 

  • Immunization 

  • Polio 

• Global Growth & Opportunity  

  • Nutrition 

  • Water, Sanitation & Hygiene 

• Global Health  

  • Discovery and Translational Sciences 

  • Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases 

  • HIV 

  • Innovative Technology Solutions 

  • Institute for Disease Modeling 

  • Integrated Development 

  • Malaria 

  • Neglected Tropical Diseases 

  • Pneumonia 

  • Tuberculosis 

  • Vaccine Development and Surveillance 

• Each team has an annual budget. Each year, the accompanying strategy needs to be approved and investments are made following that approval. There is often little money left at the end of their fiscal year because the bulk of the budget has been awarded, so timing of application submission is a factor.   

Considerations for applications 

• Ask yourself the following questions: 

  • What are the relevant teams and how are they organized? 

  • How can I make connections with team members or program officers? 

  • What is their strategy? 

  • Have I met with the foundation fundraisers to run my idea past then and get specific strategy and outreach assistance? 

• Present your idea according to the strategy of the foundation. If it does not align with Foundation strategy, you will not be competitive for funding.  

• In the past, applicants have also summarized their current relevant projects at the School and how they are aligned with the Foundation’s interests in initial outreach.  

• Create a 2-page concept note that is aligned with the Foundation’s strategy. Share this with the School’s foundation fundraisers so they can help you develop a strategy to connect with program officers or other key players. Projects that would be eligible for federal funding will not be competitive. The foundation fundraisers in External Affairs at the School can review your draft through the lens of their long experiences with the Foundation. 

• The Foundation also has country offices in a number of African and South Asian countries and relies on those staff to develop the strategy and work closely with those governments. If your work is country-specific, that can be another path to connection. 

• Colleagues in other institutions who have received funding for similar work can be beneficial if they are willing to share the Foundation contacts that they approached.  

• Another possible strategy is to connect with past Foundation awardees at Hopkins. Over the past 5 years, 54 PIs were awarded a total of 340 million dollars.  

 Make your application stand out 

• Stress the impact your idea will have on people’s health. This is the Foundation’s priority. 

• Include a total estimated budget for a 2–3-year period.  

• You need to show an ability to achieve measurable results quickly.  

 The Foundation’s current strategy 

• The Foundation is very committed to funding local (in-country) organizations. It may be productive to consider being a subgrantee to the in-country institution. In a recent grant, the Foundation asked for milestones on how the work would be shifted to local partners after the award period, including a component of capacity building. 

• The Foundation is prioritizing knowledge integration and data. This encompasses gathering data and learning more from existing data.  

 

Resource Links

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Recording
Grants 360 Gates Foundation