Here is an excerpt from the 2009 annual letter from Bill Gates, devoted to the role of Foundations.
It focuses of the key problem of getting adequate feedback.
Another way that running a foundation is not like running a business is that you don’t have customers who beat you up when you get things wrong or competitors who work to take those customers away from you. You don’t have a stock price that goes up and down to tell you how you’re doing. This lack of a natural feedback loop means that we as a foundation have to be even more careful in picking our goals and being honest with ourselves when we are not achieving them.
Nota: You can send your feedback about the annual letter to annualletter@gatesfoundation.org and join in a public discussion about the annual letter by visit the Facebook page.
We work hard to get lots of feedback. Each of our three divisions has gotten great people to participate in an advisory panel that reviews their strategies. In addition, every significant grant is reviewed by a number of outside experts. And as we execute our strategies, we need to share what we learn, because the biggest leverage is in getting many others to adopt best practices. Since we are in this for the long run, we need to develop credibility by the strength of our evidence, and by not claiming to know more than we do.
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