The Gates Foundation was mentioned twice in the Times on Sunday. The foundation gives money to the Discovery Institute to support a regional transportation, but not the Discovery Institute's Intelligent Design stuff. It also gives money to support education at the lower grades instead of at the high school level.
I have no gripe with these pet programs of Gates. Supporting education at younger ages sounds like a good plan. I have no idea what regional transportation is, but it doesn't sound offensive.
No doubt that most foundations fund some really great programs, Intelligent Design stuff aside. They pass on money to think tanks and activists to carry out their agenda. They have been instrumental in the passage of all of sorts of policy or even in bypassing government altogether and setting up their own programs.
Lots of policies, organization, and output. By a small group of rich people.
One of the articles mentioned the website, http://www.guidestar.org/, as a place to find information on where the foundations are blowing their money.