# $29 million grant recipient highlights ongoing needs

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/08/06/29-million-grant-recipient-highlights-ongoing-needs/
- Published: 2009-08-06T04:28:20+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The grant of $29 million from the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation to Concern Worldwide
has prompted Concern’s CEO to remind people that it still needs to raise a lot of
money to provide services.

 

The €29 million grant will support child health initiatives in six developing countries.

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“We’ve been trying to make the point that this grant from Gates is for a very specific
purpose –maternal and child health – for a specific number of countries; six. And
we’re working in 28 countries,” said Tom Arnold, Concern’s CEO.

 

“The money they will be providing to us over the next five years represents less
than 5 per cent of our budget. So we still need the resources to implement the other
95 per cent,” he said.

 

Arnold saw the grant – the biggest individual sum Concern has ever received – as
a tribute to his organisation’s track record in developing innovative responses 
to the effects of poverty.

 

Since it was set up by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda a decade
ago, the foundation has dispersed more than $20 billion in grants to improve health
and combat poverty around the world and enhance educational opportunities in the
US.

 

Three years ago, Warren Buffett – the second richest man in the US, after Gates –
joined forces with the foundation, and has contributed more than $5 billion since
then, with the promise of five times as much in the future.

 

Gates and Buffett, each of whom have a personal fortune estimated at more than $
50 billion, expect to give away most of their money during their lifetimes.

 

www.concern.net

 

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