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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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  1. 3.0
    Former Employee

    All lives have equal value - unless you’re a foundation employee

    Aug 12, 2022 - Program Officer 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Incredible colleagues, grantees and partners - opportunity to learn new things everyday with people who truly care about serving others. Best benefits in the business and great pay.

    Cons

    The foundation leadership doesn’t care about employee development and retention. As one deputy director put it “we’re not here to be an employer, we’re here to achieve our strategy goals”. Why those two things are put at odds with one another is baffling, but a pervasive attitude of leadership throughout the foundation. There is little to no training, yet somehow most managers are deeply skilled at this line of thinking and demeaning their employees - taking credit for their work in public settings, making them perform two or three jobs with no pay increase or title change and then holding sessions on burnout and asking why people feel so stressed, hiring limited term employees and offering no support at the end of their contract, laying full time employees off while telling them they’ve done excellent work and there was nothing they could have done to improve. This place is full of performative strategy shifts and reorgs and leadership has convinced themselves that those types of changes (and impatience) somehow equates to impact. Unfortunately it does not.

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    1 person found this review helpful
  1. 5.0
    Current Employee

    Brilliant people with a passion for the mission

    Mar 7, 2023 - Program Coordinator 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    leveraging the resources of internal talent, global partnerships and well-allocated funds brings impact to the people we care about most

    Cons

    The foundation is large and sometimes gets sidetracked in its processes

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  2. 4.0
    Current Employee

    Room for Improvement

    Feb 13, 2023 - Coordinator 
    Recommend
    CEO Approval
    Business Outlook

    Pros

    Opportunity to work with passionate, driven, and smart people on complex and important global (and domestic) challenges. There is a growing focus on inclusive culture and equitable partnerships (with a lot of room for growth). Excellent benefits. Ability to move around through backfill and interim roles.

    Cons

    Bureaucratic/political work environment, and priorities are set from the top so a lot of time spent managing up. People managers are a very rare commodity - leadership hired for their technical expertise, not for their skills in managing people/relationships/conflict/etc. Competitive work environment with antiquated philosophies (in the already problematic field of philanthropy) around investing. Lack of transparency into leadership decision making.

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Photos

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation photo of: Seattle Campus
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation photo of: Intern Alum
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation photo of: Ignite Diversity Series
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation photo of: Space Needle
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation photo of: Atrium
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation photo of: End Polio Now
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation photo of: Team Quarterly Meeting
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