Ford Foundation President Luis Ubiñas has pledged to increase Ford’s payout rate by about 10 per cent in 2009. Speaking at the Independent Sector conference in Seattle in November, he said it is important ‘to not let the short-term challenges of the stock market … undermine the long-term goals of social justice’. Jeff Raikes, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, meanwhile, said in a letter posted on the Foundation’s website that it, too, plans to increase its payout by 10 per cent next year, though this is not as much as it had originally anticipated.