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 photographs of children and farmers in much dustier and less prosperous places than Seattle. Only past the reception, almost hidden away on a landing, is there a reminder of the foundation's status and contacts: a vivid shirt in a glass case, presented during a visit by Nelson Mandela.
大楼外没有机构的标志。甚至在街上找不到入口。相反地，游客必须走侧门，在一个独立的门岗前停下（这里也没有标志），向保安说明来意，这些异常礼貌和低调的保安都曾受雇于前国家元首和巨富。身份核实后，你要穿过一个满是中档汽车的停车场，如果幸运的话，还会看见某位世界著名的健康或贫困问题专家，他们为基金会工作，信心满满，身着西雅图白领中常见的休闲棉布防水制服。 接着，你会来到接待处：终于在墙上看到了小小的基金会标志，旁边挂着几张富有诗意的儿童和农民的照片，他们所在的地方，比西雅图更脏、更破败。 越过接待处，在一处近乎隐蔽的平台，才能看出基金会的地位和人脉：在一个玻璃盒子里，展示着纳尔逊·曼德拉在访问中留下的衬衫。
 The low-lit corridors beyond have little of the scruffiness and bustle you often find at charities. The fast- expanding foundation staff (presently around 850 employees) are in increasing demand around the world: meeting governments, attending summits and conferences, and above all "in the field", as foundation people put it, checking on the progress of the hundreds of projects – from drought-tolerant seeds to malaria vaccines to telephone banking for the developing wo

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