Bill Clinton Announces Plans to Expand Global Charitable Effort

The former president Bill Clinton concluded his third annual Clinton Global Initiative last month by announcing that 245 individuals, governments, foundations, companies, and charities had pledged to spend or raise money toward solving global problems.

Mr. Clinton also discussed how his philanthropy will be affected if his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, wins the presidential race. Such a victory, the ex-president said, would mean he would have to do more to reveal names of donors, in order to avoid any perceptions of conflict of interest.

While the William J. Clinton Foundation did not release a figure for how much money was pledged at the three-day event, as it has in past years, the scale of giving seemed to outpace that of previous conferences. Several billion-dollar commitments came from companies that pledged to invest in new markets to alleviate global warming. London’s Standard Chartered Bank, for example, committed to spending at least $4-billion over the next five years on clean-energy projects.

Charities and foundations, too, said they would raise or donate big sums for the event’s four themes: climate change, education, poverty, and health. Some of the larger pledges included a $300-million commitment from the Intel Foundation for online teacher-training programs, and $100-million from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to improve health care in Africa.

“This has become what I had hoped it would be: an action-forcing event with a lot of ideas, not just responding to ideas but coming up with ideas about how to change the playing field for the future,” Mr. Clinton said.

Asia Meeting

At the conference, Mr. Clinton announced big plans to expand the Global Initiative and establish it as a major brand in philanthropy. He plans to hold a similar conference next spring in Asia, in hopes of building a culture of philanthropy in that part of the world and focusing on the region’s challenges.

Other continents might play host to similar conferences in the future, he said. He also intends to take the Clinton Global Initiative to college campuses.

Mr. Clinton said that he would create “CGI-U’s” to encourage college students to devote time or money to social problems. The first CGI-U will be held at Tulane University, in New Orleans.

“Getting young people into this at an early age is very important,” said Mr. Clinton. “I want every high school in America to have its own NGO, and every college in America to have its own CGI. It would change the face of philanthropy and the face of America.”

Mr. Clinton’s efforts to democratize the conference, and encourage giving from those who can’t afford the $15,000 charged to people who attend in person, seemed to bear fruit. MyCommitment.org, a Web site he unveiled at the conference, raised $130,000 during the event, Mr. Clinton said.

Political Questions

Senator Clinton didn’t speak at this year’s Global Initiative, as she has in past years. But her presidential run and its potential impact on Mr. Clinton’s philanthropy prompted questions from reporters. Asked if he would publicize the names of donors to his presidential library, Mr. Clinton noted that his wife has co-sponsored legislation that would require presidential libraries to make public their contributor lists.

He also said that if his wife were to win the presidency, he would make a greater effort to be open about how his library and foundation are run.

“I do believe I will have extra responsibilities for transparency should Hillary get elected,” he said. But Mr. Clinton said he would make public only new contributors, not people who gave in the past with the understanding that their gifts would be anonymous. “Some of them are Republicans. They might not want anyone to know; it might ruin their reputation,” Mr. Clinton said to laughter.

Evaluating the Effort

Mr. Clinton’s staff this year attempted to focus on what had been accomplished because of past pledges, rather than on the dollar figures announced. At a news conference, Mr. Clinton rattled off some achievements: More than eight million patients worldwide are receiving medical care; nearly three million entrepreneurs are receiving financial support; and 1.2 million patients in Sudan, Chad, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have received emergency and primary health care.

But for now, at least, the conference is perhaps most notable as a way to energize people about giving and good works.

“The Clinton Global Initiative is doing hundreds of different things and that makes it extremely hard to render a judgment,” said Peter Frumkin, professor of public affairs and director of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the University of Texas at Austin. “It certainly has a lot of value as a motivator and an accelerator of philanthropy.”