insidethebillandmelindagatesfoundation.docVIP

Inside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 走进比尔和梅琳达·盖茨基金会 These days the former Microsoft boss Bill Gates devotes his time to running what has arguably become the most powerful charitable organisation in the world. Is this the future of giving - and, if so, is that a good thing?这些日子，前微软公司老板比尔·盖茨将个人的所有时间，都投入于运作全球最大、备受争议的慈善机构，这是慈善事业的未来吗？如果是，这是一件好事吗？ Andy Beckett 安迪·贝克特 Bill and Melinda Gates at a TB clinic in South Africa 比尔和梅林达·盖茨在南非的结核病诊所。 The headquarters of probably the most powerful charity in the world, and one of the most quietly influential international organisations of any sort, currently stand between a derelict restaurant and a row of elderly car repair businesses. Gentrification has yet to fully colonise this section of the Seattle waterfront, and even the actual premises of the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, which, appropriately perhaps, used to be a cheque-processing plant, retain a certain workaday drabness. Only four storeys high, with long rows of windows but no hint of corporate gloss, its beige and grey box sits anonymously in the drizzly northern Pacific light. 比尔和梅林达·盖茨基金会可能是世界上最强大的慈善机构，也是最有影响力的国际组织之一，目前的总部位于一间废弃的餐厅和一排老式汽车维修厂之间。尽管这里是比尔和梅林达·盖茨基金会所在地，但是，旧城改造工程还没有覆盖这片西雅图海滨区域，确切地说，这里曾是票据处理厂，至今仍保留着工业区的单调乏味。基金会大楼只有四层高，窗户成排，却没有公司的光鲜华丽，在北太平洋朦胧的阳光映衬下，米色和灰色的格子间看起来毫不起眼。 There is no sign outside the building. There is not even an entrance from the street. Instead, visitors must take a side road, stop at a separate gatehouse, also unmarked, and introduce themselves to a security guard, of the eerily polite and low-key kind employed by ex-heads of state and the extremely rich. Once admitted, you cross a car park full of modest vehicles and, if you are lucky, glimpse one of the world-renowned health or poverty specialists working for the foundation, dressed in the confidently casual Seattle office uniform of chinos and rainproofs. Then you reach the reception: finally, there is a small foundation logo on the wall, and beside it a few lyrical photogr