Melinda Gates: Get Involved Now

I would say first, get involved, start to learn. Learn about something you're passionate about. And pick your area in philanthropy. It doesn't have to be one of ours. It might be one of ours. And then one of the fantastic things, as you all know even better than I do about social media these days, is you can connect via the web and connect in very meaningful ways. So I would say this. If you have the opportunity to go to the developing world, your eyes will be opened. I would just at least say in a way that probably you'll never be able to turn away. That's how I felt. That's what got me started. Our first trip to Africa, which was a vacation, I couldn't turn away. After that, I went to see the animals. I loved it, but it was the people. You can't turn your back. So I would say get involved. If you can, go to the developing world, do. If you can, volunteer in a school here, volunteer in a hospital, start to learn what the problems are, but then connect via the web. DonorsChoose is a fantastic website. If you want to give $30 to a classroom, a few dollars to help a te buy a printer she needs for a classroom that's in a bad part of Oakland where she can't get a laser jet, help her do that. If you want to go up on Catapult and learn about projects in the developing world, Microloans for women, contributing to helping buy contraceptives for women, or buy a vaccine for somebody, all of those options exist on the web and are very well researched and in place. We're involved in a whole host of them. One of them is Catapult. We fund donors choose. But there are lots of places you can go on the web if you want to donate money, but there's also donating your time and donating your energy, and I would encourage you to do that too, and do that locally. There's so many things to get involved in.