Gates Foundation to close -- in several years

Gates Foundation to close -- in several years: "Gates Foundation to close -- in several years
Decision emphasizes issues are solvable

By TOM PAULSON
P-I REPORTER

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, intending to underscore its belief that the mission is more important than the institution, plans to close its doors a half-century or so after the philanthropy's primary benefactors -- Bill, Melinda and Warren Buffett -- have died.

'Of course, that could easily be another 100 years,' said Patty Stonesifer, chief executive officer at the Gates Foundation. But planning an eventual closure, she said, emphasizes the Gateses' desire that many of the problems of poverty, inequity and disease they have targeted be regarded as both urgent and resolvable."