Inside Fortress Bill

A BBC documentary devoted to the Gates Foundation with some parts about secrecy and lack of transparency. Presented on Humanosphere. There is no mention of Melinda :(

The hidden cost of million-dollar donations

An interesting article by Robin Rogers in the Washington Post looks at the "concern about how and where the money is spent", the responsibility to the public to be clear about its use. She worries about the reluctance to critically review such generosity and concludes by stressing the need for checks and balances. Where are they?

How transparent is the Gates Foundation?

An interesting article published by Caroline Preston in this blog of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Philanthrocapitalism blog about King Bill

Bishop and Green keep complaining about the lack of transparency and how people are afraid to say anything that could perceived as criticism of the Gates Foundation.

Gates Foundation: still looking for honest feedback

From Tom Paulson's Blog, Humanopshere.

Actionable Measurement Guide

The Guide to actionable measurement (pdf) explains how the Gates Foundation plans to evaluate projects.

Jeff Raikes talks again about the need for better feedback (March 2011)

In this interview with the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Jeff Raikes talks again about the need for better feedback. But would monkeysurveys do the trick? He also keeps limiting his concern with grantees while feedback should be open much more widely to all stakeholders and the public at large: grantees have a vested interest not to provide critical feedback and the Foundation's staff in charge of managing a grant is not in the best position either to carry and relay "bad" news.

Mr. Raikes also said the foundation is continuing to explore new ways to improve communication with grantees following a critical report last June in which many nonprofits complained that Gates is often unresponsive.

He said the foundation is working with the Center for Effective Philanthropy, the group that produced the report, to identify new avenues for eliciting feedback from grantees. Perhaps foundations could use online tools like Survey Monkey, which enable people to easily create and send out surveys, to engage with grantees, Mr. Raikes said.

“Our sector in general needs to put itself in a position of more continuous feedback loops,” he said.

How the Gates Foundation says it measures progress

Source: Gates Foundation

The media strategy of the Gates Foundation

This interview on the blog Humanosphere on December 21, 2010.