比尔·盖茨最近宣布其慈善基金会将斥资2,000亿美元，用于帮助全球最贫困的人口减少疾病与死亡。他对其慈善基金会的员工提出了一个问题。
微软（Microsoft）创始人盖茨在本月召开的盖茨基金会（Gates Foundation）年会上问道：“我们该如何唤起公众的关注？我们必须大幅提升行动力度。”
数百名盖茨基金会的员工坐满了位于西雅图的会场。许多人从基金会在印度、中国、南非等国的办事处专程赶来。这座圆形剧场与全球最大私人慈善机构盖茨基金会那拥有双翼造型的总部大楼隔街相望。
今年的年会正值一个非同寻常的时刻：员工们刚刚获悉，他们所服务的机构将在20年后停止运营。在成立25周年之际，盖茨基金会宣布未来20年将加倍投入资金，之后将最终关闭。其计划支出的2,000亿美元是现代历史上规模最大的慈善承诺。
当盖茨步入灯光略显昏暗的礼堂时，从夹楼到前排全场起立鼓掌欢呼。这位基金会联合创始人说道：“我们正迎来一个了不起的里程碑时刻。”盖茨首先回顾了基金会在过去25年取得的进展，包括将儿童死亡人数减少一半，以及在抗击疟疾、脊髓灰质炎和其他传染病方面取得的成就。提及对其慈善事业影响最深的人时，包括他的母亲、父亲、同为慈善家的沃伦·巴菲特，以及基金会联合创始人、前妻梅琳达·弗伦奇·盖茨，他一度哽咽。
然而，现场气氛并非是在庆祝胜利。尽管盖茨阐述了基金会的宏大目标，包括根除脊髓灰质炎和疟疾，并将结核病和艾滋病导致的死亡减少90%，他同时也警示前路漫漫，慨叹了慈善领域的脆弱性，并指出美国及其他主要捐助国近期答复削减对外援助已威胁到过去二十年的进展。
盖茨对基金会员工表示：“扭转这一局面，需要我们全力以赴，需要我们积极倡导以恢复资源投入。” 他还表示，他正在寻求“卓越且低成本的技术创新，以便我们能利用剩余资源，让这些数据真正重回正轨。”
基金会首席执行官马克·苏兹曼对富裕国家削减对外援助表达了愤怒，道出了许多人的心声。在特朗普政府大幅削减美国主要国际援助机构美国国际开发署（USAID）的预算之前，盖茨及其基金会就已决定追求这些雄心勃勃的公共卫生目标，而如今其他几个国家也在削减其国际援助预算。
苏兹曼表示：“请务必认清，我们正进入一个新时代。正如你们所听到的那样，在这个时代，世界上最贫困的人口将无法再依赖世界上最富裕国家强有力且持续的支持。感到沮丧是可以理解的……我们从未想过，需要如此艰难地去证明我们工作的重要性。”但他接着表示：“我们已准备好迎接这场战斗。”
年会结束后，一位基金会员工对《财富》杂志表示，在基金会宣布2,000亿美元支出计划后，同事们的情绪一直“相当乐观和充满热情”。这位员工写道：“想到我们将打造一项能够产生长远影响的事业，将通过培育本土力量、赋能合作伙伴以延续我们的使命，从而让我们在完成使命后功成身退，我们感到无比振奋。”
苏兹曼表示基金会的目标并未改变。他表示：“当关键的联盟似乎要在我们眼前瓦解时，我们不能因此就畏缩不前。当对一个更美好未来的希望开始显得天真或过时，我们必须提醒人们，我们的乐观并非凭空而来。它来之不易，并非基于盲目信仰，而是建立在具体的、可衡量的成果之上。”
盖茨要求员工重新激发实现基金会核心使命的动力，吸纳新的合作伙伴，并投资开发人工智能的潜力，以帮助消除贫困，并在药物研发中发挥关键作用。盖茨表示：“我真的相信也希望这不是天真的想法——尽管逆风而行，我们在未来20年所能取得的成就，将比过去25年更加丰硕。”（财富中文网）
译者：刘进龙
审校：汪皓
Bill Gates had a question for the employees of his charitable foundation, which he recently announced will spend $200 billion to reduce disease and death among the world’s poorest.
“How do you get people to care?” the Microsoft founder asked at the Gates Foundation’s annual meeting this month. “We’re going to have to up our game quite a bit.”
Hundreds of Gates Foundation employees—many flown in from the foundation’s country offices in India, China, South Africa, and elsewhere—filled an amphitheater across the street from the world’s largest private philanthropy’s two-winged headquarters in Seattle.
This year’s event came at a remarkable moment: Employees had just learned that the operation they work for will no longer exist 20 years from now. On its 25th anniversary, the Gates Foundation announced that after doubling its spending in the next 20 years, it will shutter operations. The $200 billion it will spend is the largest philanthropic commitment in modern history.
Walking into the dimly lit auditorium, Gates received a standing ovation from the mezzanine down to the front row. “We are at an amazing milestone,” said the foundation’s cofounder. Gates began by celebrating the progress made in the foundation’s first quarter-century, including the reduction by half of childhood deaths, and successes fighting malaria, polio, and other infectious diseases. He teared up as he mentioned the people—his mother, father, fellow philanthropist Warren Buffett, and ex-wife and foundation cofounder Melinda French Gates—who have influenced him the most in his philanthropy.
The tone was far from triumphal, however. Even as Gates laid out the foundation’s big ambitions—including eradicating polio and malaria, and reducing deaths from tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS by 90%—he warned of how far there is to go, bemoaned the sector’s fragility, and said the recent drastic cuts to foreign aid from the United States and other top donor countries are already threatening the last two decades’ progress.
“It’s going to take our very best work to get this reversed, our advocacy to get the resources restored,” Gates told the foundation’s staff. And he said, he’s looking for “amazing, low-cost innovation, so we can take what remains and actually get those figures going back in the right direction.”
CEO Mark Suzman spoke for many when he expressed rage at the cuts in aid from wealthy countries. Gates and his foundation had made the decision to pursue these ambitious public health goals before the Trump administration’s gutting of the United States’ main international aid agency, USAID—and several other countries are also cutting their international aid budgets.
“Make no mistake, we are entering a new era, one in which, as you’ve heard, the world’s poorest people can no longer rely on strong, steady support from the world’s richest nations,” Suzman said. “It is okay to be frustrated… We never thought we’d have to fight so hard to justify the importance of our work.” But, he continued: “This is a fight we are ready for.”
Reached after the gathering, one staff member at the foundation said that colleagues’ mood has been “pretty optimistic and enthusiastic” after the $200 billion announcement. “We are super energized thinking about what legacy building looks like and how we can work ourselves out of a job by building local capacity and empowering our partners to continue the mission,” the staffer wrote to Fortune.
Suzman said the foundation’s goals have not changed. “When critical coalitions seem to crumble before our eyes, we cannot just shrink our ambitions,” he said. “When the very idea of hope for a better future starts to sound naïve or out of date, we must remind people that our optimism does not come easily. It has been hard-earned. It is not based on blind faith, but concrete, measurable results.”
Gates asked his employees to reinvigorate their drive to achieve the foundation’s core mission, bring new partners along, and invest in the potential of AI to help alleviate poverty and play a key role in drug discovery. “I really believe, and I hope it’s not a naive belief, that we can achieve—despite the headwinds—even more over the next 20 years than we did in the first 25,” he said.