Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center Tours and Activities

Sleek and modern, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center is a free museum focused on global philanthropy, including the many projects and partnerships of the multi-billion dollar foundation. Across 5th Ave from the Space Needle and spread throughout the first floor of the organization’s operational headquarters, visitors can wander past glass partitions etched with inspirational slogans and informative photographic displays that educate and inform on topics like global poverty, universal access to fresh water, combating pervasive infectious diseases and other seemingly intractable problems. Even signs above the water fountains here, which read, ‘What if you had to walk three miles for this water?’ are thought-provoking.

The Center is divided into four distinct galleries – Voices, Family and Foundation, Partnerships and Innovation and Inspiration. Near the end, in the Innovation and Inspiration gallery, stations encourage visitors to react by sketching their causes and reflecting on their own passions. The Center also includes a small theater that shows short films on some of the foundation’s notable work including addressing homelessness in Washington state and profiling some individuals who have helped to make India polio-free.