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Clinton Global Initiative
September 28, 2009
Clinton Global Initiative
Clinton Meeting Raises $9.4-Billion
Former president Bill Clinton’s annual philanthropy meeting, which was held in New York last week, raised more than $9.4-billion in philanthropic gifts and other types of charitable commitments.
While organizers of the event had predicted the bad economy would hamper pledges this year, the amount is larger than in 2008, when Mr. Clinton generated $8-billion.
The commitments can take many forms, including changes in corporate practices that have an environmental benefit, which the donor provides an estimated dollar value to. This means that the dollar figure represents some cash in hand as well as money that needs to be generated in some fashion.
In total, Mr. Clinton estimates that since 2005 his conference has garnered $57-billion to fight social and environmental problems.
The former president prides himself on the fact that the meeting does not invite participants to return if they do not make a commitment. According to an official with the Clinton Global Initiative, four people who attended last year’s meeting had not fulfilled the requirement in the days leading up to last week’s event.
Under pressure from Mr. Clinton’s group, they made contributions before its opening session, with one actually physically barred from entering the meeting until he or she made a commitment.
(The Clinton organization did not identify the tardy donors.)
As with last year’s event, Mr. Clinton is trying to create more so-called mega-commitments, in which a large number of donors and charities come together around a single cause. The former president has argued that too many philanthropists, corporations, and nonprofit groups fail to coordinate their efforts, thus minimizing their ability to help people.
The causes include:
- Helping women and girls in poor countries get an education and other assistance. As part of this, the Nike Foundation announced it would award $2-million over five years to establish an academy to train young women in Bangladesh to be nurses.
- Preventing human trafficking. As part of this, Humanity United, an organization created by the philanthropist Pam Omidyar, said it would form a coalition of donors interested in ending slavery worldwide.
- Providing aid to Haiti. Among the pledges: Habitat for Humanity International said it would build homes for 1,500 families and train people in ways to mitigate the damage caused by hurricanes.
Other notable philanthropic efforts announced at the event include:
- King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia promised $30-million to the global effort to eradicate polio. He also said the kingdom would expand its program that seeks to vaccinate from polio every visitor during the Hajj, the trip to Mecca that Muslims are required to make.
- The Omidyar Network, which was established by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, promised to invest $30-million in small and midsize businesses in Africa and India.
- Three technology companies — Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft — said they would work with the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide Kenyan schools with 6,000 computers and train teachers in how to use them in the classroom. The businesses estimated the project to be valued at $9-million.
September 25, 2009
Clinton Global Initiative
Popular Singer Donates $1-Million for Youth Service
While many celebrities give their voice to a cause, the music star Usher says he is putting his money where his mouth is — pledging $1-million to help youth around the world.
“My contribution is a reminder to all whom I’ve influenced that I’m not just talking the talk, I’m actually walking the walk,” the singer said in an interview with The Chronicle at the Clinton Global Initiative. “I’m going to make this donation to show you that I’m serious.”
The gift will support Powered by Service, a new effort announced at the Clinton meeting and run by Usher’s Atlanta charity. The project will provide $500 grants to young people ages 12 to 20 to get involved in fighting malaria, ending drug use, or other charitable work.
The grantees will be picked by a team of eight young people, who are graduates of a summer camp that Usher started to teach kids about the entertainment and sports industries. For their new assignment, the so-called moguls in training received a two-month course on philanthropy.
“Who better to motivate the movement than those who are affected by it,” Usher said about the decision to put young people in charge.
Usher said his passion for service extends back to when he was growing up in Chattanooga, Tenn. The Boys and Girls Clubs, public schools, and other groups helped him when he and his friends formed a dance troop that would perform to promote ways to prevent gang violence.
Today, after selling millions of records and winning five Grammys, he wants to emulate musician-philanthropists Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson. He also credited the Clinton Global Initiative and its members for keeping him inspired.
“To sit here and hear about water purification, to hear about famine, to hear about some of the issues that reside around the world, it just reminds you of how much work we have left to do,” he said. “Just when you feel like, I’ve done enough, I just want to take a break, this reminds you that there are so many people in need.”
Clinton Global Initiative
Bill Clinton Supports Cap on Charitable Deductions
Former president Bill Clinton gave cautious support for a new Senate plan that would limit charitable deductions — an idea that has been harshly criticized by nonprofit groups.
Several Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee this month proposed limiting to 35 percent the tax break that wealthy Americans can get for their itemized deductions, including gifts to charity. The revenue generated by it would pay for changes in the nation’s health-care system.
The American Association of Museums, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Council on Foundations, and other nonprofit groups are fighting the congressional effort, saying it would hurt fund raising at a time when the recession is already taking a toll on giving.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Chronicle and other newspapers during the Clinton Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton said that he disliked a plan that President Obama had floated that set the deduction limit at 28 percent, thereby affecting more people. But he is amenable to the recent one.
“The original proposal I opposed because it raised too much money and ran too much risk in this economy of cutting down charitable donations,” he said. The Senate idea “is much less onerous.”
He did say that the plan could hurt giving by Americans who live in high-cost areas.
“I don’t think that proposal would have any impact on somebody who was otherwise inclined to give if they lived in Little Rock,” the former president said. “I think if they have three kids and they’re living in Manhattan, it probably would.”
While Mr. Clinton himself would probably be required to pay more taxes if the deduction limit is altered, he said he would gladly do so. “I feel I should be asked to pay the costs of the health-care program,” he said.
Aside from the deduction debate, Mr. Clinton said he is trying to do more at the Clinton Global Initiative to coordinate donors and charities, saying they often fail to work together.
In places like Haiti, he and Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health, want to “harmonize all their work so we waste as little money, as little time, and as little talent as possible and maximize impact.”
He also said he wants the annual meeting, which has a largely international bent, to focus more on domestic problems.
For example, that afternoon he invited the mayor of Greenville, Miss., Heather McTeer Hudson, on stage to talk about her rural city’s water problem. Due to the cypress trees that surround Greenville, the water supply is yellowish-brown. While safe to drink, it has hurt the town’s ability to attract tourists and businesses.
Mr. Clinton called on donors in the audience to give money and assist the Southern town, promising to treat anyone who helps to a meal at Doe’s Eat Place, Greenville’s famous steakhouse.
September 24, 2009
Clinton Global Initiative
Rockefeller Leader Discusses Cutting-Edge Grant Making
While foundations are sometimes viewed as organizations that are slow to change, Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, told members of the Clinton Global Initiative that her fund is doing more to innovate grant making.
She said donors should be more open to giving money to individuals or organizations that come along with new, if unusual, ideas. To illustrate her point, she told a story about John D. Rockefeller Jr.
When Albert Einstein sent a proposal to the philanthropist asking for $500, he said, “Why don’t we give him a $1,000? I think he’s onto something.”
Ms. Rodin also said her foundation has explored “innovative processes” to help this. For example, using the Internet and other technology, foundations can use “crowd sourcing” to receive feedback and suggestions from the people they and their grant recipients are trying to assist.
Nonprofit groups talk a lot about listening to their beneficiaries, “but user-driven innovation actually does that,” she said.
Ms. Rodin added that pursuing innovative grant making can at times clash with another growing trend in philanthropy: the effort by donors to measure the effectiveness of their giving.
Such focus on “impact” can lead to “too much heavy handedness,” she said.
“Measurement should not oppose experimentation and risk taking,” the Rockefeller leader emphasized.
Clinton Global Initiative
Businessmen Discuss Challenges of Philanthropy
A trio of businessmen at the Clinton Global Initiative said that getting involved in philanthropy has great rewards, but they also were rather candid about the challenges.
Eli Broad, who earned a fortune in real estate and has become a major donor to arts and education groups, said that unlike in business, a philanthropist must work hard to build consensus among charities, public officials, and others. Occasionally, he said, “you have to suffer more fools.”
Robert Wright, the former president of NBC who established Autism Speaks after one of his grandchildren was diagnosed with the disease, said half-jokingly that compared to his for-profit job, “the perks and pay really suck” running a charity.
Along with the other panel member, media mogul Ted Turner, they all said that business people can bring valuable skills and experience to nonprofit groups.
However, they weren’t sure of the reverse, saying they would be hesitant to choose a person from the nonprofit world to run a company.
“I’m not sure a philanthropist would be a good person to run it,” Mr. Turner said, referring to his most recent enterprise, a chain of steakhouses.
Mr. Wright suggested it wasn’t a question about the competence of nonprofit leaders; he said that the passion it takes to run a charity may not translate into the corporate arena, where profit is often a primary motivator.
The panel did speak proudly about their philanthropic accomplishments. And Mr. Turner suggested that there are rewards in his charitable endeavors, like his $1-billion gift to the United Nations, that he has trouble duplicating in other parts of his life.
“In 10 years, we’ve never had a serious argument,” he said about U.N. officials, adding, “I wish I could say that about my [former] wife.”
Clinton Global Initiative
An Innovation Wish List
During a panel at the Clinton Global Initiative on how to speed up the development of new ways to fix social inequities and other global problems, former vice president Al Gore and four other people were asked what innovations they hoped would develop in the year ahead.
Here are the responses:
- Mr. Gore called for a “sustainable capitalism” that would value environmental and social factors as much as profit.
- Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank, predicted that there would be breakthroughs in how mobile phones can be used to help improve the health of impoverished people.
- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the managing director of the World Bank, hoped that developing countries in Africa and elsewhere could develop better ways to handle natural disasters and political emergencies.
- Jack Ma, the chief executive of the Alibaba Group, the Chinese equivalent of eBay, said that small and medium-sized businesses will be the major source of innovation and that they need to be supported.
- Judith Rodin, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, said the world needs to find new ways to grow and deliver food in poor nations.
What do you think of these five ideas? What innovations do you think are needed or could happen in the next 12 months?
September 23, 2009
Clinton Global Initiative
Clinton Meeting Skips Swag, But Offers Other Perk
If you paid $20,000 to attend a conference, you’d probably expect a gift bag stuffed with books, gadgets, or other goodies.
But participants at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative — who do pay that amount to be here — are only getting an empty bag. Former president Bill Clinton said the decision to cut back on gifts was in part driven by the economy, but he also wanted to be different than other big world meetings.
In place of the swag, attendees get “200 points” that can be spent at the so-called Giving Back Center, a kiosk where they can allocate their points to various charitable projects donated by corporations and charities.
For example, 10 points or so can go to a water filtration packet from Procter & Gamble, which manufactures the small powdered product that reduces parasites, bacteria, and other contaminants.
While the points are symbolic, how they are spent will indicate what projects people at the Clinton meeting find important.
Clinton Global Initiative
Panel Debates Idea of Social Innovation
Innovation — as a concept and a goal — is popular these days. The Obama administration, of course, has set up its Office of Social Innovation and several nonprofit groups are pioneering what they describe as innovative approaches to fighting social or environmental problems.
But what does it really mean to be innovative? At the Clinton Global Initiative a panel of experts sought to answer that question.
John Kao, founder of the Institute for Large Scale Innovation, said the idea is often misunderstood by some of the people who have embraced it recently.
“Innovation is an overly used word these days,” he said. He defined it as “creativity with a plan and purpose.”
Of course, what may seem like noteworthy creativity to some, may not appeal to others. If someone threw a bucket of paint on the floor it wouldn’t be worth anything, Mr. Kao said, but if Jackson Pollock did it, the value would change.
William Drayton, the founder of Ashoka, a charity that has championed the role of social entrepreneurs, said that innovation requires the creative ideas of individuals but also a society or an organization that fosters such thinking.
He said America needs to instill in its teenagers a sense that they can be “change makers.” If parents and teachers can’t do that, the nation will be less competitive in the world marketplace. “It’s a huge challenge for this country,” he said.
But Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, an engineering professor at Stanford University, cautioned against the idea that everyone needs to think of themselves as an innovator within a business or charity. “If everybody is change making, you’re not building scale,” she said.
Clinton Global Initiative
Assistance for Women and Girls in Developing Nations
Panels at the Clinton Global Initiative often avoid the hard issues that face charitable endeavors.
But the ABC News journalist Diane Sawyer added a tougher edge, pushing corporate and nonprofit leaders to discuss their failures in philanthropy and asking about the scarcity of resources.
The discussion focused on the so-called girl effect, the idea that whole nations improve when women and girls receive an education and other support.
While the panelists agreed on the importance of the concept, Ms. Sawyer wanted to hear practical details on what charitable efforts work and don’t work.
She asked Zainab Salbi, the chief executive of Women for Women International, and several other people how their efforts have fallen short and what they’ve learned.
Ms. Salbi said she preferred to focus on “challenges,” but Ms. Sawyer quickly rephrased her question: What is “something you have tried to do that didn’t work?”
Ms. Salbi said that convincing fathers in Africa and other parts of the world to abandon the tradition of dowries, which are often a key part of planned marriages, has not succeeded. Instead, she said women’s advocates need to convince them that educating their daughters by sending them to school will actually improve families financially more than a one-time wedding gift.
Ms. Sawyer also raised the issue of whether enough money was available for women’s programs, an issue that divided the panel between donors and fund raisers.
Lloyd C. Blankfein, chief executive of the Goldman Sachs Group, and Rex W. Tillerson, chief executive of ExxonMobil Corporation, said that the amount of money is not the key, but how effective that money is spent.
But Ms. Salbi, who of course needs to raise funds for her group, disagreed. She said that too little aid dollars are earmarked for women and girls.
September 22, 2009
Clinton Global Initiative
Attendance Up at Clinton Meeting
With the recession hobbling the world economy, there were questions if attendance would drop at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative.
“We were thinking we would throw a party and no one would come,” said former president Bill Clinton at the start of the four-day conference.
But despite the downturn, Mr. Clinton said that 1,200 people are attending the New York event, more participants than last year.
He did say the economy has taken a toll; some of the charitable commitments made in previous meetings may take more years to reach their goals than planned. Given the difficulties, Mr. Clinton urged participants to consider supporting already-made pledges instead of creating new ones.
Since the conference started in 2005, Mr. Clinton said that 1,400 commitments have been made, with about a quarter of them fulfilled. The former president said those commitments are worth $46-billion — though the businesses, philanthropists, and other donors at the conference are the ones who report how much their pledges are worth.
Read The Chronicle’s 2008 article that discusses how the Clinton Global Initiative estimates and measures the commitments. (A subscription or free, temporary pass is required to view the story.)
Copyright © 2009 The Chronicle of Philanthropy