Last month, the New York Times Magazine ran this Q and A. I’ve received a lot of comments about it, but this post from the PhilanTopic blog stood out.

The author, Mitch Nauffts, responded to the piece with a list of his own. Then, he invited his readers to submit more. I appreciate the sentiment in Mr. Nauffts’ post, so I thought I’d answer a few of his questions.

What’s driving the global boom in philanthropy?

I don’t know if it’s right to say there’s a global boom in philanthropy. We work with dozens of partners who’ve been doing phenomenal work for decades. But I do think that in all walks of life (not just philanthropy), people are more aware of what’s going on in the world around them. There seems to be a boom in how much people are paying attention to global issues, largely because the Internet makes it so much easier to connect with people and information from around the world.

I got to participate in a great example of this new connectedness recently when I gave a talk at TEDxChange about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was simulcast to over 80 different sites in 40 countries around the world, including a group of people in New Zealand who gathered in their pajamas to tune in and talk about MDGs in the middle of the night. And that global conversation has continued on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

That’s just amazing. Once you’re talking to people in Kibera, Kenya, or Sao Paulo, Brazil, your natural desire to work together kicks in. When I was growing up in Dallas, Texas, people put a lot of energy into making our community better. It’s just that now, people’s sense of community is much, much larger.

Does the Gates Foundation have too much influence in the areas in which it works?

We know that the foundation alone cannot solve the problems we seek to address. We use our voice to advocate for our issues, but even with all of our resources, our efforts will always be a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed—both in terms of political will and financial resources. Take the example of education. California spends about $50 billion on its K-12 system in a single year—more than our entire endowment. Tackling the biggest inequities will take the collective action of governments of wealthy and developing countries, nonprofits, businesses, and individuals.

Therefore, since the beginning of the foundation, we’ve relied on literally hundreds of partners. We need them for their resources, their expertise, their experience, and their talent. We don’t make up our strategies in our offices, in isolation. We study the fields we’re interested in, we engage with experts, and we evolve our thinking alongside them.

Our hope is that our investments have a catalytic effect. We think that we can use our resources to uncover some new ideas and prove some new concepts so that our partners, nonprofits, governments, and businesses can work more efficiently. For example, if we can help a new vaccine get developed, then all the money that nations are already investing in their routine immunization programs will go further and save more lives.

Given your wealth and the highly visible nature of the problems you and your husband have chosen to address through your foundation, how do you stay grounded? Where do you seek wisdom?

Some of the most important time Bill and I spend working on behalf of the foundation is devoted to traveling. Each of us travels at least three or four times a year to see the work happening on the ground—and, even more importantly, to meet the people that the work is designed to benefit.

I especially like talking to mothers. I’ll sit with them in their homes and am often struck by the fact that, no matter how different our circumstances, we both want the same thing for our children—a healthy and happy future.

It is often heartbreaking to see what these women and their families have to overcome every day. But it can also be inspiring. Earlier this year, when I was in a hospital in Dowa, Malawi, I experienced something I will never forget. On an incubator, I saw a small baby, struggling to breathe. It was weak and its coloring was gray. It had been born on the road, a few hours outside the hospital, and had suffered from birth asphyxia. The doctors informed me that there was little they could do and that it wouldn’t live through the day. Just moments later, another baby was brought before us and set down in the exact same incubator. It, too, had suffered from birth asphyxia and was turning purple. But because it was born in the hospital, the doctors were able to immediately clear its lungs, administer oxygen, and get the baby breathing properly. They saved the baby’s life.

The tragedy of the first baby made it very clear what’s at stake with the newborn health work we’re investing in. But the success in saving the second baby—and the knowledge that these successes are happening more and more frequently—filled me with hope to see that the work our partners are doing is helping to save lives.

Knowing that we can take the approaches we see working in Malawi and apply those lessons to other countries leaves me optimistic that real change is possible.