Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plan to close the Foundation Trust is in contrast to most large charitable foundations that have no set closure date. This is intended to lower administrative costs over the years of the Foundation Trust's life and ensure that the Foundation Trust not fall into a situation where the vast majority of its expenditures are on administrative costs, including salaries, with only token amounts contributed to charitable causes. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), previously branded as the 'William H. Gates Foundation', is a private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It was launched in
Bill Gates but is known as William Gates III or "Trey" because his father had the "II" suffix. The family lived in the Sand Point area of Seattle in a home that was once damaged by a rare tornado when Gates was nine years old. Early on in his life, Gates observed that his parents wanted him to pursue a law career. When Gates was young, his family regularly attended a church of the Congregational Christian Churches, a Protestant Reformed denomination. The family encouraged competition; one visitor reported that "it didn't matter whether it was hearts or pickleball or swimming to the