The Clinton Foundation: Substance or Style?

By Deborah Corey Barnes and Matthew Vadum

Summary: Bill Clinton is masterminding his charitable foundations fundraising campaign at the same time that he advises his wifes presidential campaign. Might that create some conflicts of interest? At the very least, linking nonprofit fundraising to political proximity is sure to generate lots of philanthropic cloutbut to what end? Bill Clinton promises to disclose the names of donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation when his wife becomes president. How reassuring.

ince leaving the White House in 2001, Bill Clinton has used philanthropy to stay in the public eye. His star power attracts widespread public attention and major donor contributions to the William J. Clinton Foundation, which supports his presidential library and funds many worthy charities. Drawing the very wealthy and the politically ambitious into his orbit, like moths to a flame, Clinton hopes to promote public policies he considers vital for America and the worldand his own new career as a philanthropic rainmaker. And should Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton become president, she will further boost the prospects of the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clintons focus on humanitarian issues, observes ABC News, is in many ways the perfect balance to his wifes political ambitions and also repairs the damage done to his reputation by the Monica Lewinsky scandal during his presidency, helping to transform the former presidents legacy into one of an elder statesman dedicated to global issues. (Bill Clintons Humanitarian Focus, September 25, 2007, http:/ /abcnews.go.com/Politics/ story?id=3652576) Clinton is raising money to end poverty and create economic opportunity in poor coun-

Bill Clinton parties like a rock star. The former president joined comedian Chris Rock (center), singers Shakira (second from right) and U2s Bono (right) on stage at Harlems Apollo Theater last fall to announce a youth summit planned for later this year.

tries. He wants to create awareness of threats to public health, whether from HIV/AIDS overseas or sugary soft drinks in local elementary schools. He has joined his former vice president, Al Gore, in the fight against global warming. Days after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Clinton and former President George H.W. Bush were everywhere on television, reassuring the world that philanthropy would provide relief. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast eight months later, Clinton and Bush Sr. again jumped into the spotlight to cheerlead for private giving to Natures victims. Out of office, Clinton remains a faithful liberal who continues to believe in the blessings of government assistance. But he says he has discovered that personal philanthropy

can also do wonders: I felt obligated to do it [giving] because of the wonderful, improbable life Id been given by the American people and because politics, which consumed so much of my life, is a getting business. You have to get...votes, over and over again, Clinton writes in his 240-page book, Giving, which became a bestseller when it went on sale last September.

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CONTENTS
The Clinton Foundation
Page 1

Philanthropy Notes
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Unfortunately, Clintons idea of giving includes supporting advocacy organizations that promote more government spending. In his book, Clinton explains how lobbying campaigns can push lawmakers to increase government healthcare spending. He urges his readers to contact the group Families USA, whose executive director, Ron Pollack, coordinated lobbying by outside groups in support of the Clinton administrations failed healthcare proposals. If readers are aged 50 or over, Clinton urges them to join AARP. He commends the work of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank headed by his former White House chief of staff, John Podesta, and notes that CAP created the Better Health Care Together coalition, an unlikely alliance of labor unions (the Communications Workers of America and the Service Employees International UnionSEIU) and corporations (WalMartSEIUs arch-enemyAT&T, Intel, and Kelly Services) that are eager to push employee healthcare costs onto the taxpayers. (For more information, see HillaryCare Again: Families USA, SEIU, Big Business Push for Socialized Medicine, by David Hogberg, Organization Trends, June 2007.) While Clinton lauds private citizens for giving to their places of worship and local charities, he says its not enough. Big Government remains the solution: Many of the problems that bedevil both rich and poor nations in the modern world cannot be adequately addressed without more enlightened government policies, more competent and honest public administration, and more investment of tax dollars. Public interest in what Bill Clinton has to say is sustaining the markets demand for his speeches. Touring the world giving talks and wagging his famous finger has made him a wealthy man. Clinton gets six-figure fees for his paid speaking engagements, earning him some $31 million from 2001 through 2005. The Clinton Foundation The William J. Clinton Foundation states that its mission is to strengthen the capacity of people throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence. It focuses on four critical areas: health security; economic empowerment; leadership development and citizen service; and racial, ethnic and religious reconciliation. The foundation also runs the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, which includes the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum and the Clinton School of Public Service. The legal and financial relationships and responsibilities among these entities are complex: Like other presidential libraries, the Clinton Library is administered and funded by the National Archives. The Clinton School is a branch of the University of Arkansas. However, $165 million in privately-raised contributions funded construction costs for the Presidential Centerthe library, museum, school and foundation offices which was dedicated in November 2004. Direct contributions are the source of almost all the foundations revenue, and they have risen rapidly each year. According to its Form 990 tax returns, the foundation took in a total of $49.5 million from 1998 to 2002. But in 2006 the yearly take was $135.8 million. As of December 31, 2006, the total amount contributed to the foundation since 1998 was over $367 million. Its net assets are $208.3 million. Where does the money go? While the foundation paid the $165 million in construction costs for the library complex, it is now setting its sights on projects far beyond the Little Rock campus. The foundation reported $91.9 million in expenses in 2006 and $85.5 million of that was reported as spending on program services (with the remainder going to management and fundraising). In 2006 much of the foundations program consisted of grant-making, and most of that went to disaster relief. The foundation handed out $31.3 million in grants, of which $30.1 million went to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund to help victims of the 2005 hurricane. Other grant recipients included ACORN, the radical poverty group that originated in Arkansas. It received $250,000 to help Katrina victims apply for the federal earned income tax credit. The City College of New York received $49,114 for a program on ethnic reconciliation and $192,200 went to the University of Virginias Miller Center for an oral history project on the Clinton presidency. However, the Clinton Foundations future projects are even more ambitious (which may explain why the foundation spent over $16

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million on consulting fees). The foundation has established a series of international initiatives intended to tackle a variety of world problems. These initiatives do not directly fund overseas programs. Instead, they team up (partner) needy nonprofits and government agency officials around the world with wealthy donors looking for projects to assist. Perhaps even more importantly, the Clinton Foundation links up wealthy donors to one another. This is a rather novel concept of what a foundation is for: Grantors are incentivized to do good deeds because they get to bask in the approval of Bill Clinton. The foundation-as-networker for the good and the great is a new institutional form. But with living tycoons like Bill Gates assuming the role of philanthropist to solve global health problems and Clintons own vice president dedicated to saving the planets environment, it is hardly conceivable that Bill Clinton would settle for less. Here are the principal Clinton Foundation initiatives: *Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) aims to increase the availability of AIDS care and treatment for the needy by lowering the cost of treatment, providing strategic and targeted technical assistance where it is most needed. The foundations first organized undertaking, CHAI serves as the model for the foundations signature style of linking donors to grantees. Widely praised for making effective use of Bill Clintons celebrity and contacts, the Initiative has successfully brokered price cuts by generic drug producers of AIDS drugs, organizing what is in effect a buying cooperative of more than 70 poor countries desperate to help those living with HIV/ AIDS. CHAIs management consultants are providing ill-equipped countries with the business strategies to create a more efficient healthcare market for HIV/AIDS treatment and education. Ironically, the chairman of CHAIs policy board is Ira Magaziner, who received poor notices in the 1990s when he was the organizer of Hillary Clintons health care task force. *Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) was incorporated in 2005 as a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit. A self-described catalyst for action, it hosts yearly Clinton Global Summits that bring together left-leaning thinkers and activists with wealthy businesspeople and politicians to meet and mingle and ruminate on the worlds problems. The Summits goal is to have wealthy CGI attendees partner with the leaders of aid and development groups by making financial pledges to their programs. During its last three meetings (2005-2007) CGI has with 25 manufacturers and the retailer Arkansas-based Wal-Mart to increase public access to low-cost green technologies. *Alliance for a Healthier Generation fights childhood obesity. Its a partnership between the Clinton Foundation and the

Hillary Rodham Clinton (left) and retired General Wesley Clark (right), who endorsed the New York senator's presidential bid last year, appeared together at the Clinton Global Summit in 2005.

announced 600 pledges of over $10 billion, including $3 billion to tackle global warming from British business mogul Sir Richard Branson. And woe unto those who fail to keep their pledges: They are not invited back to the following years Summit. *Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI). Created in 2006, it is yet another promoter of partnerships among heads of business, government and politics. CGIs initial partner is the C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, an association of city officials organized by London mayor Ken (a.k.a. Red Ken) Livingston. Representing some 40 of the worlds largest cities (Addis Ababa, Beijing, Cairo, London, Lagos, etc.) the group is committed to making cities more environmentally friendly by securing various city commitments to adapt their traffic signals, water systems and waste dumps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Clintons program has persuaded five banks to provide $1 billion in financing for these projects. In November CCI announced another partnership with 1,100 U.S. mayors. It aims to partner the mayors

American Heart Associationco-chaired by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. *Clinton Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) to encourage sustainable economic growth in Africa is a Clinton Foundation partnership with the Hunter Foundation. CHDI has a 10-year operating budget of $100 million, pledged by Sir Tom Hunter, the richest man in Scotland. *Urban Enterprise Initiative (UEI) helps inner-city small business owners and entrepreneurs. It claims to have provided 65,000 hours of technical assistance (worth more than $14 million) to New York City entrepreneurs. *Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative (CGSGI) is the latest foundation partnership, created in 2007. Pledge money comes from three principal sources: Lundin for Africa, the philanthropic arm of Vancouver, Canadas Lundin Group of Companies ($100 million), Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, the third richest man

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in the world according to Forbes magazine ($100 million), and Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra ($100 million). In a separate gift, Giustra gave the Clinton Foundation $31.3 million in 2006 through his Radcliffe Foundation. Clinton Library Donations: Secrecy or Disclosure? Federal law does not require nonprofit charities to disclose the identities of their contributors, and that applies to presidential foundations. Typically these foundations support the unique entity known as the presidential library. Presidential libraries have two parts: The librarys document collections are maintained by the National Archives and are open to all researchers of whatever political persuasion. But most tourists visit the librarys exhibition halls, conference center and museum store which are administered by the presidential foundation. They invariably glorify their particular president. Costs are divided. The National Archives pays to maintain the collection of documents and library salaries, while donors, including corporations and foreign governments, may give unlimited amounts of moneyeven while a president is in officeto the presidential library foundation. When it opened in 1997, the George (H.W.) Bush Presidential Library voluntarily disclosed the names of donors who gave amounts over $10,000. Only a few names were withheld at the request of individual donors. So when the drawing boards called for the Clinton Presidential Library to feature a wall naming its major donors, the move was applauded as an effort to bring greater transparency to the $165 million project. The wall was never built. Last September Bill Clinton said his foundation doesnt need to disclose its current and past donor identities because, in his words, A lot of people gave me money with the understanding that they could give anonymously. But how anonymous is anonymous? ABCNews.com has reported that a partial list of donors was sold to infoUSA, a direct marketing data company founded by major Clinton donor Vin Gupta. From June 2006 to May 2007 the company offered to sell a list of more than 38,000 Clinton presidential library donors to foundations and other and then turned around and said that these names must be kept anonymous completely undercuts their argument, she said. Liberal commentator Matthew Yglesias also believes the Clintons should make public the names of foundation donors to avoid any appearance of impropriety. The voters ought to have this information before the election, when it could still make a differenceWe really ought to find out who his donors are before the nomination is settled, Yglesias wrote in an October 4 Los Angeles Times op-ed. Because its presumed that big-dollar donors to the Clinton Foundation are gaining access to and some measure of influence with the foundations top dog, is it such a stretch to think that might extend to his White Houseseeking wife as well? Asked to comment on the Foundations policy at a presidential debate in September, Senator Clinton punted. Well, youll have to ask them, she said, referring to Bill Clinton and his staff. In fact, the New York Times reported December 20 that the foundations first chief of staff, Karen Tramontano, has said Mrs. Clinton was deeply involved in deciding the foundations organization and scope of work: She had a lot of ideas. All the papers that went to him went to her. Whos on the donor list? Billionaires, Saudi royalty, Arab businessmen, the king of Morocco, the governments of Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, and Taiwan, and lots of Hollywood celebrities have donated to the Clinton Foundation. In 2004, the New York Sun

Former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, who raises money for both the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clintons presidential campaign, is shown here with the Clintons in 1999.

nonprofits. Perhaps it all depends on the meaning of the word anonymous. (Clinton Library Sells Secret Donor List, November 19, 2007, available at http:// blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/ clinton-library.html) Under pressure, Clinton now promises to make public the names of all future donors to his foundation if his wife is elected to the White House. Sheila Krumholz of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the influence of money in politics, rejects this reasoning. The fact that theyve sold the list

Hollywood couple Angelina Jolie (left) and Brad Pitt (right) attended last years Clinton Global Summit.

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reported on 57 donors who appear to have each given $1 million or more. The big donors included infoUSAs Vin Gupta, former Mattel Inc. chairman Bill Rollnick, Black Entertainment Television (BET) founder Robert L. Johnson (who is an outspoken supporter of Mrs. Clintons presidential candidacy), Hollywood director-producer Steven Spielberg and his actress wife Kate Capshaw, movie producer and Kerry 527 funder Stephen Bing, insurance magnate and Soros friend Peter B. Lewis, Gateway, Inc. co-founder Ted Waitt, shopping center developers Bren and Melvin Simon, and the Soros Foundation, which is the European arm of George Soross Open Society Institute. Denise Rich, ex-wife of Marc Rich, the fugitive whom Clinton granted a pardon hours before leaving office, gave the foundation $450,000. (Saudis, Arabs Funneled Millions to President Clintons Library, New York Sun, November 22, 2004, available at http://www.nysun.com/article/ 5137) Clinton Foundation donors Peter Lewis, Bren Simon, and George Soros are also members of the Democracy Alliance, the nonprofit that would create a permanent political infrastructure of nonprofits, think tanks, media outlets, leadership schools, and activist groupsa kind of vast left-wing conspiracy to compete with the conservative movement. Day-to-day operations of the Alliance are run by Kelly Craighead, a close personal friend and former senior aide to Hillary Clinton. (For more information on the Democracy Alliance, see Billionaires for Big Government: Whats Next for George Soross Democracy Alliance? by Matthew Vadum and James Dellinger, Foundation Watch, January 2008.) The New York Times also revealed that in the closing years of the Clinton administration at least 97 donors donated or pledged a total of $69 million for the library. Although some of the $1 million donors were longstanding friends of the Clintons, others were pushing the Clinton administration for policy changes. Two donors pledged $1 million each while they or their companies were undergoing Justice Department probes. (In Charity and Politics, Clinton Donors Overlap, New York Times, December 20, 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/ 12/20/us/politics/20clinton.html)

Although donations to the Clinton Foundation are supposedly anonymous, infoUSA, the company founded by major Clinton donor Vin Gupta (right), purchased a list of donors to the Clinton presidential library.

A Nonpartisan Foundation? The William J. Clinton Foundation proclaims that it is nonpartisan and denies coordinating its activities with Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. But considering its extensive ties to Democratic Party fundraisers and placeholders its hard to believe the foundation isnt at the very least marketing the Clinton Foundation to Hillary-for-President supporters. And those supporters may

want something more than a discount at the Clinton Library gift shop. The legendary money-man Terry McAuliffe, a close personal friend of the Clintons, is on the Clinton Foundations board of directors and is one of its top fundraisers. McAuliffe, who used to head the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is also managing Senator Clintons presidential campaign and is its chief fundraiser. Other major donors to the Clinton Foundation who are among Hillary Clintons top fundraisers include DNC finance director Philip Murphy and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs and a heavy-hitter in Democratic fundraising circles who was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) from 2003 to 2005. Then theres the Clinton Foundations chief executive officer, Bruce Lindsey, formerly a senior advisor in the Clinton White House known for doggedly defending the president during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals. The foundation paid him a salary of $254,000 in 2006. In November, after critics suggested Clinton was suppressing presidential documents to protect his wife, Lindsey said the former president has not blocked the release of a single document. But the New York Sun reported on

Bruce Lindsey, consigliere in Bill Clintons White House, now runs the Clinton Foundation.

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December 19 that the National Archives, which administers presidential libraries, is withholding about 2,600 pages of records at Bill Clintons request. Another Clinton Foundation board member is lawyer Cheryl Mills. She also happens to be general counsel for Mrs. Clintons campaign and previously served as deputy White House counsel in the Clinton administration, where she defended President Clinton during his 1999 Senate impeachment trial. Lastly, there is the well-connected Washington, D.C.-based fundraising and communications firm, OBrien McConnell Pearson (OMP). It does work both for the foundation and Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. OMPs other clients include the League of Conservation Voters, Southern Poverty Law Center, America Votes, ACLU, NAACP, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Democratic National Committee, and Friends of Harry Reid. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) is studded with partisans who are sure to gain influence should Hillary Clinton win the White House. While its press releases proclaim CGIs Global Summit a nonpartisan event with an emphasis on results, its agenda is prepared by committed advocates who are veterans of Washingtons trench warfare over public policy. CGIs Energy Working Group is chaired by Brookings Institution scholar David Sandalow, a senior environmental official in the Clinton administration who was also executive vice president at the World Wildlife Fund. The working groups advisory board includes Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Clinton-era EPA Administrator Carol Browner (shes also on the board of Al Gores Alliance for Climate Protection and John Podestas Center for American Progress); Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change; Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense; and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist heavily invested in ethanol and an outspoken backer of Californias failed Proposition 87, which would have imposed taxes on the states oil producers.
Paychex founder and Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano is deeply involved in the Clinton Global Initative.

CGIs other working groups are chaired by senior fellows at the Center for American Progress who previously served in the Clinton administration. Gene Sperling chairs the education working group. He was Clintons national economic advisor and is the author of The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Gayle Smith chairs the working group on poverty alleviation. She served in the Clinton National Security Council and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Thomas Kalil chairs the global health group. He was deputy director of

Evangelical Environmental Network and originator of the What Would Jesus Drive? campaign. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie turned heads. Britains Tony Blair, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and 50 other current or former heads of state greeted one another. Media magnate Rupert Murdoch and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist also accepted Clintons invitation. Cost to attend the Summit: $15,000 per person. A Major Underwriter for the Summit was Rochester, New York businessman Tom Golisano, billionaire founder of Paychex, the payroll processing corporation. An alternative energy booster, Golisano supports electricity-producing wind farms and has started a company, Empire State Wind Energy LLC, to show New York municipalities how they can structure deals to extract more revenue from commercial wind development. Golisano fulfilled his CGI pledge Commitment to Action by promising $10 million to the Rochester Institute of Technology to create a sustainability institute. Of course much of the talk at the Summit was about global health, poverty, children and education. But global warming was a major topic on everyones lips. I see New Orleans as a microcosm for the global problem, said Brad Pitt. If theres anyone who understands the repercussions of climate change its the people of the Gulf Coast. Said philanthropist Ted Turner: Outside of a nuclear exchange, global warming is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. Bill Clinton called for the rapid expansion of carbon markets to create price incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This position finds favor with anyone who can profit from it. For instance, Summit participant Jim Rogers, chairman of Duke Energy, which generates electricity from clean coal and nuclear power, announced that his companys Commitment to Action would consist of working to overcome regulatory barriers that may discourage utility investment in energy efficiency today. He called it the Save a Watt program. Environmental groups cynically suggested that might be a euphemism for lobbying politicians to let Duke Power raise its rates and win public subsidies for nuclear plant construction. (For more on the politics of carbon markets see, Al Gores Carbon Crusade: The Money and Connections Behind It, by Deborah Corey Barnes, Foundation Watch, August 2007.)

the White House National Economic Council. (For more information on CAP, see The Center for American Progress: Think Tank On Steroids, by John Gizzi, Organization Trends, May 2007.) The Clinton Global Summit On September 26, 2007 Bill Clinton opened the third annual Global Summit of his foundations Clinton Global Initiative. For three days the Summits 1,300 invited guests gathered at events in the Sheraton hotel, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City to discuss the state of the world. They pledged themselvesand their moneyto solve the worlds problems. Bill Clinton rounded up numerous attendees from the corporate world, including Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, PepsiCos Indra Nooyi, Duke Energy chairman Jim Rogers and now-deposed Starbucks CEO Jim Donald. Carnegie Corporation president Vartan Gregorian was there as were NoVo Foundation chairman Peter Buffett (Warrens son), former vice president Al Gore, U.N. climate change envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rev. Jim Ball, president of the

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Some other CGI Commitments to Action appear similarly self-serving, giving participants credit for what benefits them and what they may do anyway. For example, the Bermuda-based company Infinity Bio-Energy gives itself an eight-year commitment to produce ethanol from Brazilian sugar cane. It will invest $192 million in sugar mills and ethanol distilleries. The Merck pharmaceutical company pledges to donate three million doses of its controversial Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine to poor countries that join its Gardasil Access Program. As for lifestyle empress Martha Stewart, she pledges to bring attention to the fact that we are ill-prepared to care for our aging population. Based upon the experience Ive had with my own mother, which was difficult and time-consuming, Stewart proposes to work with Mt. Sinai hospital physicians to identify caregiving experts, develop a caregiving handbook, and create a caregiving curriculum for medical students to learn how to help family caregivers (like Stewart?). The estimated total value of her commitment is listed as $2 million. When contacted by Foundation Watch, CGI Director of Development Scott McDonald refused to explain what the requirements are for being a donor for the CGI Summit. Whilst we do have levels of sponsorship the ultimate outcome of a sponsors tailored engagement with CGI is the result of a dialogue, he said in an e-mail. In his book, Bill Clinton reports that the first CGI summit in 2005 led to more than $2.5 billion in pledges, while the second in 2006 secured pledges of more than $7 billion. Bill Clinton and Giving Many CGI pledges are definitely charitable and appear very worthwhile, notably those to the poorest countries in Africa. Clinton reports that after the 2006 CGI Summit Black Entertainment Televisions Robert Johnson donated $30 million to the Liberia Enterprise Development Fund (LEDF) to support investments and technical assistance to jobcreating entrepreneurs in that strife-torn country. The Sterling Stamos investment firm gave $250,000 to the CGI Rwanda Partners in Health after founder Chris Stamos joined Clinton on a trip to the country whose genocidal civil war occurred during Clintons presidency. Shorebank of Chicago is developing a strategy to lift the per capita income of Rwanda and Malawi. When these donors combine money with management expertise, they can make a difference, creating new markets that supply goods and services to meet a potential demand. Such philanthropy can produce long term social progress and immediate help to the needy. But the Clinton Global Initiativeand Bill Clintons notion of givingalso accentuates style over substance. By promoting social networking among the very wealthy, who are encouraged to find a project they want to help, the Clinton initiatives depend on the donors yearning for recognition, esteem and fame. That can lead to little more than high class socializing and publicityseeking. It can also produce occasions for hidden but profitable deal-making and influence-buying, which is what concerns critics of the Clinton Foundations policy of not disclosing donor names. Critics of Bill Clintons book, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (Knopf, September 2007) which ranked #1 on the New York Times bestseller list shortly before the Summit opened, note that it is little more than a laundry list of good deeds by wealthy Friends of Bill. It offers little practical advice to donors, makes no attempt to prioritize needs, and does not consider the ways philanthropy can fail to achieve its objectives. Its feel-good message captures the essence of the former presidents public personality while obscuring the calculations that have made his ownand his wifespolitical careers so successful. Deborah Corey Barnes is a freelance writer and blogger for the Polireport in Washington, D.C. Matthew Vadum is Editor of Foundation Watch.
FW

Please remember Capital Research Center in your will and estate planning. Thank you for your support. Terrence Scanlon, President

GOOD DEEDS, SQUANDERED LEGACIES

A cautionary tale first published in 1994, this third edition by Martin Morse Wooster testifies to the continuing importance of the issue of donor intent. It contains new material focused on the ongoing Robertson Foundation v. Princeton University case and an update on the tragic battle over the Barnes Foundation. An Executive Summary is also included. Wooster, senior fellow at Capital Research Center, tells a cautionary tale of what has gone wrong with many of this countrys preeminent $14.95 (plus shipping) foundations. But he also shows To order, call 202-483-6900 that other foundations, such as or visit those established by Lynde and http://www.myezshop.com/capital_research/ Harry Bradley, James Duke, and or mail your check and book order to: Conrad Hilton, safeguard their Capital Research Center founders values and honor their 1513 16th Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 intentions.

February 2008

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PhilanthropyNotes
The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said last month that all charities should be compelled to inform donors how much of their contribution would be used for programs related to the groups mission, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. We ought to shine a finer light on charities, all of them, said Representative Henry Waxman (D-California), after lawmakers grilled officials of a veterans charity that spends just 25% of the money it raises on programs. Any charity ought to use a majority of its funds to benefit the purpose of that charity. Yale University announced it would increase endowment spending next school year by 37% to $1.15-billion and pay the full tuition costs of students whose families earn less than $60,000, up from $45,000, the Wall Street Journal reports. Yale President Richard C. Levin said the school also plans to drop all loans from financial-aid packages in an effort to make the school affordable regardless of financial circumstances. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who has criticized well-endowed elite universities for sitting on huge balance sheets, lauded the schools. Parents and students have a right to expect these universities with big endowments to end the hoarding and start the helping with skyrocketing tuition costs, Grassley said. After Yales announcement, Harvard University said it would also increase endowment spending to make attending the Ivy League school more affordable. Virginia-based Smithfield Foods is being sued by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for allegedly infringing the foundations Race for the Cure trademark, the Washington Post reports. The lawsuit came after the company filed a trademark application for Deli of the Cure, which it plans to feature on packaging to emphasize its corporate donations for breast cancer research. The foundation argues the slogan will confuse consumers. A report on the school privatization movement from Rick Cohen of the liberal National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy finds that school vouchers and education tax credits garner widespread support among voters even if their enactment as the state and federal government levels has been spotty. Cohen found that between 2002 and 2006 over 1,200 foundations gave grants to 132 school choice organizations, and that the philanthropic playbook used by conservative foundations to promote school choice has been so successful that other foundations could learn from it. The nations largest donors gave a total of $7.3 billion last year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropys annual survey. There were 20 donors who gave $100 million or more. Topping the list was William Barron Hilton with his pledge of $1.2 billion to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Former Congressman Mark Deli Siljander (R-Michigan) was indicted as part of a terrorist fundraising ring alleged to have funneled more than $130,000 to a supporter of al-Qaeda and the Taliban who threatened U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The 42-count federal indictment accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency, which is alleged to fund terrorists, of paying Siljander $50,000 for lobbying using money stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Siljander is also a former U.S. delegate to the United Nations. Meanwhile, a federal court in Boston last month convicted three leaders of the now-defunct Massachusetts Care International of lying to gain tax-exempt status for the group and then using it to finance Islamic radicals overseas. The Internal Revenue Service said it will issue an updated version of Form 990, the return that charities and other tax-exempt organizations are required to file annually, to be used for returns filed in 2009. The public comments we received in response to our draft form helped us develop a final form consistent with our guiding principles of transparency, compliance and burden minimization, said IRS official Steven T. Miller.

February 2008