The Gates Foundation is viewed by wealth managers as the blueprint for the super-rich to invest meaningfully. But Bill Gates is no longer suited as poster boy for philanthropy. 

Bill and Melinda Gates have altered private banking dramatically – for the better, one would have said until recently.

The couples' 27-year-old foundation, the second-largest charitable one in the world, showed banking executives that ideas around philanthropy and meaningfully investing can pave the way to the ultra-wealthy and their millions. Family offices have emulated the Gates Foundation's principles for using wealth to do good.

Banks Loved Gates' Sway

The couple's sheer financial as well as moral firepower – the foundation has donated more than $54 billion since 2000 – has won plaudits worldwide and provided other wealthy families a touchpoint for philanthropy.

Swiss firms including UBS have teamed up with the Seattle, WA-based foundation as co-investor, eager to benefit from the Gates' influence for their own clientele.

Unleashed Impact Boom

The Gates' vehicle brought an innovative approach to previously inefficient development aid: the foundation allocates its money like risk capital to projects identified by its experts and whose progress and impact can be measured to precise economic criteria. The foundation has helped establish a best practice for accountability and transparency in philanthropy as well as impact and environmental, social, and governance investing.

Bill and Melinda Gates are a big reason why financial services are even interested or supportive of the sustainable development goals – SDGs – laid out by the United Nations six years ago which unleashed a boom in sustainable investing.

Alarming Workplace Behavior

However, the couples' history is being re-written with their divorce. New and alarming details about Bill Gates and his entourage not only besmirch the foundation's name and reputation but question its legacy.

Interestingly, the «New York Times,» which has stood out in the past for glowing coverage of Gates and his philanthropic activity and most recently his engagement in the Covid-19 pandemic, is playing a big part in dismantling the carefully-crafted image of do-gooder and super-brain Gates.

Friendship With Sex Offender

Amidst revelations of Gates' pursuing women who worked for him or the allegedly racist and sexist behavior of the foundation's money manager, Michael Larson, one episode stands out: Gates' personal and professional relationship to Jeffrey Epstein (behind paywall).

Gates and employees of the foundation reportedly met several times with the ultra-rich sex offender, who died by suicide in jail nearly two years ago, to hammer out plans for a charitable endeavor together with J.P. Morgan. 

Contact Until 2017

Gates knew that Epstein was a registered sex offender who abused girls but nevertheless maintained the relationship with him. Gates directed employees to work out how to cull Epstein's network for the planned fund. 

It never came to fruition, and Gates ended his meetings and talks with Epstein in 2014, though employees of the foundation kept in contact until the end of 2017.

«Business» Before «Purpose»

A conscious decision of this sort by Gates and his foundation reveals opportunism that puts business before purpose and makes a sham of the philanthropy activities under the family name. Banks like UBS and Lombard Odier, proffering impact and philanthropy services of doing good while investing, need to answer the «business or purpose» question a bit more self-critically.

Credibility and a carefully cultivated image around purpose and meaning are quickly eroded.