Business & Entrepreneurship

Community & Government

Promote Racial Justice & Gender Equality

Set Goals & Manage Time Effectively

Unlock Empathy & Philosophical Wisdom

Use Philanthropy to Enact Change

Teaches Impactful Giving

Melinda French Gates

Founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Pivotal Ventures, Melinda is one of the world’s most prolific philanthropists. She tells the story of her success and lays out the framework for a class on using what you have to make the greatest impact for others.

1. Meet Your Instructor

Meet Your Instructor

Melinda encourages members to tap into their personal values in order to find causes that align with their personal goals and beliefs.

2. Let Your Values Guide Your Giving

Let Your Values Guide Your Giving

In this page from her journal, Melinda describes the experience of visiting a Tanzanian village where education is prized.

3. Melinda’s Journal: Korogocho, Tanzania, 2014

Melinda’s Journal: Korogocho, Tanzania, 2014

Learn how to uncover your personal resources, including time, money, your voice, or expertise—and use them to make an impact for others.

4. Identify Your Resources

Identify Your Resources

Understand the different forms of philanthropic giving and discover where you may want your own giving to fit in.

5. Forms of Philanthropic Giving

Forms of Philanthropic Giving

Melinda encourages members to get curious about their recipients and to form connections that will make their work resonate.

6. Connect Through Curiosity

Connect Through Curiosity

In this entry from her diary, Melinda recounts her visit to a village of Indian sex workers and how the experience helped her understand women’s empowerment more deeply.

7. Melinda’s Journal: Kolkata, India, 2004

Melinda’s Journal: Kolkata, India, 2004

Join Melinda in thinking about both your personal passions and your community’s needs in order to pick an issue you’d like to get involved with.

8. Pick an Issue That Resonates

Pick an Issue That Resonates

Melinda lays out a framework that will help you in researching and activating your giving endeavors.

9. Think, Test, Do: A Research Framework

Think, Test, Do: A Research Framework

What gets measured gets done. In this lesson, Melinda encourages members to set goals in order to quantify and qualify their successes.

10. Name Your Giving Goals

Name Your Giving Goals

In this entry from her journal, Melinda describes her visit to a school in North Carolina where one student shares how he’s inspired to give back.

11. Melinda’s Journal: Durham, North Carolina, 2009

Melinda’s Journal: Durham, North Carolina, 2009

When it comes to giving, both qualitative and quantitative data can provide deeply valuable information. In this lesson, Melinda teaches how to use data to understand needs in the community and define your goals and measurements for success.

12. There Is No Soft Data

There Is No Soft Data

Melinda describes the types of barriers that may arise in your endeavors, and ways to think strategically about how to break them down.

13. Identify Barriers to Break Them Down

Identify Barriers to Break Them Down

Learn about the value of collaboration in giving and the roles strong partners can play in helping you to achieve your goals.

14. Good Partnerships Are Invaluable

Good Partnerships Are Invaluable

Melinda talks about the importance of learning about others’ lives in order to truly understand their needs.

15. Empathetic Giving

Empathetic Giving

Melinda visits a Berkeley, California, program that empowers young women.

16. Melinda’s Journal: Berkeley, California, 2019

Melinda’s Journal: Berkeley, California, 2019

Making an impact is hard. Melinda encourages you to fight through your struggles when contributing to a cause.

17. Learn From Failure

Learn From Failure

Melinda French Gates Teaches Impactful Giving

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