Responsible for Cystic Fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, and a noninvasive test for colon cancer. [ticking] Elissa Montanti is unlike almost anyone weve ever met. With the help of some very charitable american doctors, shes changed the lives of more than 100 kids like this one, a boy from iraq who needed an arm, a leg, and an eye. I love you, waad. Youll follow his transformation. Look at him. He looks beautiful. Which is a wonder to watch. [ticking] welcome to 60 minutes on cnbc. Im morley safer. In this edition, we look at the Serious Business of philanthropy. Bill and Melinda Gates take us inside their foundation, we examine the unintended legacy of Howard Hughes, and meet a Staten Island woman helping children maimed by war. We begin with bill and Melinda Gates. With their plan to give away 60 billion, theyre the most generous philanthropists in the world. They want to make American Kids among the besteducated on earth. And while theyre doing that, they also intend to save millions of lives worldwide. The gates shun publicity, but in october 2010, Melinda Gates agreed to show scott pelley the nuts and bolts of giving away a fortune. [train whistles] the north of india, where it is a short drive from the big city to the middle ages. [animals bellow] in the countryside of indias most crowded state, uttar pradesh, often, food is scarce, electricity nonexistent, women and infants die in childbirth, and medicine remains in the realm of superstition. Its exactly what Melinda Gates is looking for a neglected crisis where her investment can save the most lives. Our belief is that all lives, no matter where theyre lived on the globe, have equal value. All lives. What are your global priorities . Hiv aids, malaria, mother and child deaths, in that order. Why those . When you looked at where the largest number of deaths were on the planet, they were from things like aids, malaria, and these childhood deaths, and nobody was giving voice to them, and no one was really tackling them, so we said, systematically, those are places that we want to go and work. What kind of decisions have you all made that have impacted the village . It might be occurring to you right about now that you havent seen the worlds Richest Woman before. Shes not the type to stand on a red carpet with milliondollar earrings. Melinda gates is a former microsoft executive who managed 800 people in Software Development and marketing. Now the work of the foundation is her obsession. This isnt a photo op. In fact, it took us a year to convince her to let us come along. She travels often, probing for facts, analyzing needs, measuring the misery. I have to be here to see it and to feel it and to understand, you know, what motivates these people. What is it that theyre doing for their livelihood . Unless i see it and feel it and touch it, i just dont feel like i can do the foundation justice in terms of what were trying to accomplish. Oh, shes gorgeous. What shes trying to accomplish here is saving lives at birth. In india alone, 1 million babies die every year before theyre a month old. So i wonder which ladies in this audience have lost a child shortly after childbirth. [speaks Foreign Language] oh, look at that. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 its a common experience in this village. Yeah. Very. [indistinct chatter] this is a great example of exactly how the foundation works. The foundation poured money into research to understand the problem. It found that by tradition, childbirth is considered unclean here. Babies are often left on dirt floors uncovered while the mother is tended to first. [baby crying] the foundation tested solutions, trained healthcare workers to use sterilized tools, and taught the mothers to keep the babies warm simple, inexpensive ideas that have reduced deaths here by half. Part of the foundations strategy is to team up with governments and other charities to make the money go farther and spread the best ideas. These deaths of children under five have come down substantially. 1960, it was 20 million children under the age of five that died. Now its 9 million children. Thats still too many. A year. A year. Every year, 9 million children die. We can get that down. And as for those other priorities she mentioned, the foundation is working on a vaccine for hiv, and nothing less than the eradication of malaria and polio, taking on everything at once. Part of what youre doing Melinda Gates is analytical and driven, not unlike her husband. She likes hard facts, strict accounting, and expects everyone around her to measure up, very much the ceo. What has been the thing that women are most reluctant to change . She talks about spending a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon, you realize that billionaire philanthropists arent like you and me. There was a funny moment when she was going through some of the figures, and in an uncharacteristic slip, she said shed pledged 1 billion to vaccines when its actually 10 billion. You know, it just occurred to me, you had misplaced 9 billion. [laughs] now, i misplace change at the end of the day, but you had actually forgotten about 9 billion. I think i missed a zero in there. Most people would remember that kind of a number. You know, for me, i think more about the possibility of what it is were trying to change. So if i have to go around the Health Statistics in the world, i dont tend to get those wrong, but the amount of dollars we put in, im always more focused on whats the result were gonna get, no matter how much money we put into the issue. Now, im from texas too, so i can say this. You dont wear your wealth like a dallas gal. [chuckles] you dont seem to be a big consumer of jewelry and cosmetics. I dont find great joy in those things. I find much more joy in connecting with people. Im much more at home being what i call out on the ground doing this work, and for me, thats where i find meaning. I dont find meaning in material things. [women singing] this village had nothing material to give but music. You know, its a long way from microsoft. [laughs] i like this a whole lot better. [ticking] coming up, the Gates Foundation and american education. The country is built on ingenuity. Its built on having lots of very welleducated people, and if you were from a poor family, how are you going to break out of that . Well, education is the only way. Good morning. Bill gates goes to school when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. [ male announcer ] imagine this cute blob is metamucil. And this park is the inside of your body. See, the special psyllium fiber in metamucil actually gels to trap some carbs to help maintain healthy blood sugar levels. Metamucil. 3 amazing benefits in 1 super fiber. 3 amazing benefits side by side, so you get the same coverage, often for less. [ rattling ] thats one smart board. What else does it do reverse gravity . [ chuckles ] split atoms . [ whoooosh ] hey, how is that atomsplitting thing going . [ rattling ] [ electronic whistling ] oh [ zap ] a smarter way to shop around. Now, thats progressive. Call or click today. For ovnights can feel califolong and lonely. Dren, i miss my sister. I miss my old school. I miss my room. I dont want special treatment. I just wanna feel normal. To help, sleep train is collecting pajamas for foster children, big and small. Bring your gift to any sleep train, and help make a Foster Childs night a little cozier. Not everyone can be a foster parent, but anyone can help a foster child. [ticking] based in seattle, the bill and Melinda Gates foundation is the largest Philanthropic Organization in the world. Theyve already given away billions. It takes a small army of people to evaluate the Many Organizations applying for grants. There are 850 employees figuring out which science or Development Projects are worthy. And listen to what they have spent already 4. 5 billion for vaccines, almost 2 billion for scholarships in america, and 1. 5 billion to improve farming in africa and asia, just to name a few. The foundations wealth ranks up there with americas biggest companies. Boy, his and hers offices. Im not sure a lot of marriages would survive this. [laughs] it works out great. We actually like it a lot. It was back in 1993 on a vacation in africa that they began to think about giving away their money. Well, if you have money, what are you gonna do with it . You can spend it on yourself. You can have, you know, thousands of People Holding fans and cooling you off. You can build pyramids and things. You know, i sometimes order two cheeseburgers instead of one, but we didnt have any consumption ideas, and if you dont think its a favor to your kids to have them start with gigantic wealth, then you got to pick a cause. You dont consider it to be a favor to your kids . No, absolutely not. To give them enormous wealth . No. They should go on to pursue whatever it is they want to do in life and not feel cheated by that by being given something, given a whole lot of wealth. They would never go out and figure out who they are and what their potential is. Have you talked to them about this . Have you said, look, were gonna give most of this away . Absolutely. And theyre okay with giving the money away . They are okay with it. Yeah, as they reach different ages, they may ask us again. Tell me again why. [all laugh] why . The gates kids will still be massively wealthy, but their parents have already given roughly 30 billion to the foundation, and they told us theyll give 90 of their money away. Add to that the contribution of the gates close friend, warren buffet, who has committed another 30 billion to the foundation. The foundation, you, have made certain choices about what youre going to fund, and some people might ask, why not drop 30 billion on a cure for cancer . For example. Well, theres a huge market for cancer drugs, and theres dozens of pharmaceutical companies that spend tens of billions on those drugs. In malaria, when we announced a grant for 50 million, we became the biggest private funders, and so the fact that it kills over a million children a year and yet has almost no money given to it, you know, that struck us as very strange, but it became the thing we saw okay, this will be unique. Well take the diseases of the poor where theres no market, and well get the best scientists working on those diseases. Youre trying to find the places where the money will have the most leverage, how you can save the most lives for the dollar, so to speak. Right, and transform the societies. Good morning. Another society they want to transform is americas, particularly through the schools. They have pledged nearly 1 4 of all the Foundation Money to american students, and we followed melinda to the Friendship Collegiate Academy high school in washington, d. C. I wonder what you think is the most alarming thing about american education. I think its most alarming that were only preparing 1 3 of the kids to go on to college. Thats a frightening thing for our democracy to say 1 3 of kids are prepared to go. Sine squared. If only 1 3 of High School Seniors are academically prepared to go to college, the gates believe that a revolution in teaching can go a long way to pushing that up to their goal of 80 . Theyre Funding Research to figure out what makes Great Teachers great. Do you feel like youre prepared, that you could go on and succeed in college . All yes. The foundation is at work in schools in nearly all 50 states. What book are you reading . Sort of Like National parents, bill and Melinda Gates have helped Pay College Tuition for 20,000 American Kids. The country is built on ingenuity. Its built on having lots of very welleducated people, and if you were from a poor family, how are you going to break out of that . Well, education is the only way. Education is the thing that 20 years from now will determine if this country is as strong and as just as it wants to be. One of the boldest efforts of the foundation is unfolding in the slums that we visited in delhi an attempt to eradicate polio. No one in america has seen this since the 1960s. We found, in a delhi hospital, a polio ward full of paralyzed children. This young boy, sahil, he is ten years old. Sahil has got paralysis on one side of his body, one leg. See there what hes doing . Hes trying his best. Hes bringing his hand, but he cannot move his leg. In a country where water often runs next to sewage, the virus, which is spread through human waste, finds new victims. Polio has been cornered to just four countries on earth, so the gates have teamed with rotary international to bang on every door to find the last child who hasnt tasted the vaccine. Do you believe you can do that, actually eradicate the virus from the face of the earth . Its been done with smallpox, and thats what gives us the hope and the belief. Namaste. While in india, we were invited to a ceremony that every new mother prays for. Because so many newborns die, theyre not given names right away. This family had waited a week to bring their daughter into the light and name her durga, which means invincible. It was during the ceremony that we saw what it was that has moved a nononsense executive to give away her fortune. Can i hold her . Oh. Oh durgas first blessing was from the sun. Then she received a second a future free of polio. [women singing in Foreign Language] in his 2012 annual Gates Foundation letter, bill gates stated that the foundations top priority remains helping to complete the eradication of polio, and in january 2012, the foundation celebrated a significant milestone towards achieving its mission. That month, india celebrated its first year without a single new case of polio. [ticking] coming up, the public legacy of a legendary recluse. Who would have thought that the Howard Hughes fortune would end up supporting Biomedical Research at the probably not Howard Hughes. [laughs] Howard Hughes, the accidental philanthropist when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. The conversation about her mortgage didnt start here. It began on her vacation in europe on the day she arrived in london. Someone set up a bogus hotspot, stole her identity and opened some credit cards in her name. But shes not worried. Checking her Credit Report and score at experian. Com allowed her to better address the issue. And move right in. Experian. Live credit confident. ™ cozy or cool . Meow or woof . Everything the way you want it. Until boom, its bedtime and your mattress a battleground of thwarted desire. Enter the sleep number bed. Designed to let couples sleep together in individualized comfort. Hes a softy. His sleep number setting is 35. Youre the rock, at 60. And as your needs change over time you can adjust your bed to sleep better together. 48month financing available through february 2 only at your local sleep number store. Find your sleep number setting and know better sleep. vo you are a business pro. Seeker of the sublime. You can separate runway ridiculousness. From fashion that flies off the shelves. And you. Rent from national. Because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. And go. And only national is ranked highest in car rental Customer Satisfaction by j. D. Power. natalie ooooh, i like your style. vo so do we, business pro. So do we. Go national. Go like a pro. [ticking] Howard Hughes was once the richest man in the world. He was also one of the strangest. A recluse for the last 20 years of his life, hughes died in 1976. But as lesley stahl reported in 2008, the vast fortune he left behind is having a powerful impact on the world. In suburban washington, d. C. , hidden behind trees so big and signs so small that even some neighbors dont know its there, is the Howard Hughes medical institute, one of the richest and quietest charities ever created. Tom cech is the institutes president. How large is the endowment . The good news is that as of 9 30 this morning, it was up from 10 billion a few months ago to now 11 billion. That makes the Hughes Institute the second largest philanthropy in the country. Only bill Gates Foundation is bigger. Okay, so theres something interesting. Its mission to unlock the secrets of life. Hughes funds hundreds of the best biologists and geneticists in america. Give us some of the hughes greatest hits, some of the great discoveries. The discovery of the genes responsible for Cystic Fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, and a noninvasive test for colon cancer. And a new drug that fights leukemia, breakthroughs in aids research, work that may lead to a cure for spinal cord injuries, and much more. All these discoveries were made by socalled Howard Hughes investigators. There are more than 300 in the u. S. , and theyre the cream of the scientific crop. How much does Howard Hughes spend a year funding all these projects . Its about 1 million per investigator per year, about 450 million a year. Wow. Who would have thought that the Howard Hughes fortune would end up supporting Biomedical Research at the probably not Howard Hughes. [laughs] its very likely that hughes didnt mean for all this to happen,