The Financial Times reports on changes in the past year in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s operations, prompted by the recession and co-founder Bill Gates’s greater involvement in management decisions.

The article cites a memo Mr. Gates circulated last year strongly critiquing the world’s largest philanthropy’s strategy, grants, and budget process and listing his own top interests, such as a focus on vaccines.

The foundation has seen the value of its endowment decline from nearly $40-billion to just over $30-billion during the downturn. It is also experimenting with a shift away from traditional grant making into “program-related investments,” such as loans, guarantees, and equity investments that could support for-profit as well as nonprofit activities.

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