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Gates Foundation

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Gates Foundation reviews

3.7

62% would recommend to a friend

(561 total reviews)
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Mark Suzman

81% approve of CEO

70% positive business outlook

Gates Foundation has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 561 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Gates Foundation employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Nonprofit & NGO industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

561 reviews
2.0
Jul 13, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The mission The amazing grantees you get to interact with Brilliant and committed colleagues Great benefits Nice offices and location The opportunity to constantly grow brain cells Resources People outside of the organization are impressed and interested in your work

Cons

When you are inside you begin to realize that the emperor has no clothes. It is a fast-paced, mean, competitive culture where people with no life outside of work excel. I began to feel like I was on survivor. I was great at my job, but the process, bureaucracy, hierarchy, constant spin and changing of directions was disheartening and made my work difficult. The worst part was watching the effect on my grantees and the field. The leadership and management are horrible. Yelling, fist pounding and insults from management and leadership are tolerated. HR is not to be trusted. The slogan is "every life has equal value" but that must only be true outside of the doors because inside there are definitely lives that are valued above others based on pedigree and position.

3.0
Aug 12, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Incredible colleagues, grantees and partners - opportunity to learn new things everyday with people who truly care about serving others. Best benefits in the business and great pay.

Cons

The foundation leadership doesn’t care about employee development and retention. As one deputy director put it “we’re not here to be an employer, we’re here to achieve our strategy goals”. Why those two things are put at odds with one another is baffling, but a pervasive attitude of leadership throughout the foundation. There is little to no training, yet somehow most managers are deeply skilled at this line of thinking and demeaning their employees - taking credit for their work in public settings, making them perform two or three jobs with no pay increase or title change and then holding sessions on burnout and asking why people feel so stressed, hiring limited term employees and offering no support at the end of their contract, laying full time employees off while telling them they’ve done excellent work and there was nothing they could have done to improve. This place is full of performative strategy shifts and reorgs and leadership has convinced themselves that those types of changes (and impatience) somehow equates to impact. Unfortunately it does not.

4.0
Dec 1, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Excellent network with incredible opportunity to create impact.

Cons

Say goodbye to work-life balance and expect to travel a lot. You will also spend an exorbitant amount of time preparing for internal meetings.

Viewing 94 - 96 of 561 Reviews

Glassdoor has 699 Gates Foundation reviews submitted anonymously by Gates Foundation employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Gates Foundation is right for you.