Cascadia bloggers are among the most trenchant in their analysis of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Here is Philippe.

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Why the Gates Foundation and its grantees need blogs and bloggers
May 16, 2009

The Lancet has published a series of articles about the Gates Foundation. Some deal with what is considered its lack of transparency. From my own little experience I have concluded that the Foundation would greatly improve its communication by having bloggers in residence that would do what Scoble did for Microsoft. Here is what Reuters said when he left:

The world's most famous corporate blogger, Robert Scoble, credited with helping to break down a  siege mentality at his employer, Microsoft Corp., confirmed on Sunday he is leaving to join a recently formed Silicon Valley Internet media start.

Beyond in house bloggers, the Gates Foundation could/should request all its grantees to blog. This huge new blogosphere would take care of a big chunk -if not most- of the transparency/accountability issues. Yes it would create a lot of discussion but this is normal and healthy considering the scope of the issues and the budgets involved.

The question is how long will the Gates Foundation stick to a siege mentality?

The content of this post was triggered by posts on various blogs: Seattle Kristi Heim's The Business of Giving, Gates Keepers and Sharon Schneider's The Philanthropic Family. Thanks to all for starting the conversation.

http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/blogservice/2009/05/why-the-gates-foundation-needs-blogs-and-bloggers.html