Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Since Sport Relief in 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has match funded all the work we support on immunisation through the GAVI Alliance. They have helped us roll out vaccinations for children under the age of five in Sub Saharan Africa, to help save children’s lives, and protect their health. 

The relationship between Comic Relief UK and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (the Foundation) began in 2007, and the Foundation continues to be one of our long-term partners. General operating support from the Foundation has been instrumental in enabling Comic Relief to expand into international markets, most significantly via the establishment of Comic Relief Inc. and Red Nose Day in the USA in 2015.  

Thanks to matched funding from the Foundation, we have been able to give grants to organisations like The Global Fund to accelerate the end of AIDS, TB and malaria as epidemics; to the vaccines alliance, GAVI, to increase access to immunisation in poorer countries, and more recently to The Challenge Initiative, to increase women’s access to family planning and reproductive health services and most recently to Power of Nutrition to provide targeted nutrition interventions to under 5’s and pregnant women in Burkina Faso. Together, these grants have enabled beneficiary organisations to make significant strides forward in their respective fields. 

Comic Reliefs partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation continues and together we are able to extend our reach and impact in areas of mutual interest.