Building Partnerships for Global Priorities

Next week, the former president Bill Clinton will gather world leaders, philanthropists, and celebrities for a meeting in Manhattan to discuss solutions to global problems — and potentially raise millions of dollars for charity.

During the unusual three-day event, the former president asks each participant to make a commitment to fight poverty or climate change and improve health or education.

Since it was started in 2005, the Clinton Global Initiative has produced almost 1,000 commitments Mr. Clinton says are worth about $38-billion.

This year Mr. Clinton said he wants to focus on the effectiveness of the proposed humanitarian projects that he is lending his name to.

“What we’re trying to do here is not just get more people to come and stand up and say, I’ll give money, I’ll give time, but to make sure they do it the most effective way,” he told The Chronicle during an interview at his home in Chappaqua, N.Y. “What I hope is that every year we’ll get better at the quality of projects that are a product of our commitment process.”

As part of the effort to improve the effectiveness of the meeting, the Clinton Global Initiative — or CGI, as it is known — wants more participants to join together to tackle often-ignored global problems, spotlight what accomplishments — and occasional missteps — have been made by contributors, help charity leaders from abroad connect with deep-pocket donors, and beef up its ability to measure whether promises made to Mr. Clinton are fulfilled.

“We have to demonstrate that progress is being made,” said Michele Kahane, director of commitments at the Clinton Global Initiative. Without the changes, the event “could be seen as being a pledge-athon.”

Indeed, some charity leaders — and privately even some people involved with the Clinton meeting — say that while the conference has inspired significant giving, the projects spurred by the commitments are not always the best approaches to solving world problems, and that the estimate that pledges total billions of dollars is overstated.

One of the harshest critics, Richard Walden, president of Operation USA, a relief organization in Culver City, Calif., said the Clinton organization should be “ashamed” for saying it has generated $38-billion for good causes.

“If I were the Gates foundation,” which has roughly $38-billion in assets, he said, “I’d be insulted.”

Mr. Clinton, however, said all Clinton Global Initiative promises are vetted and monitored, and since the conference began three years ago, have assisted more than 100 million people worldwide.

“We have a year-round commitments operation that not only develops new commitments, but monitors the keeping and implementing of old commitments,” he said. “We keep score every year.”

Celebrities and Charities

Like the World Economic Forum on which it is based, Mr. Clinton’s meeting brings together an eclectic cross-section of movers and shakers from around the globe, with Hollywood movie stars mixing with African presidents and technology moguls chatting at cocktail parties about drugs for malaria. And many of the participants make high-profile philanthropic pledges.

In 2007, for example, the actor Brad Pitt said that he would match, up to $5-million, every dollar provided to an effort to rebuild New Orleans.

This year will be no different. For instance, the cyclist Lance Armstrong said last week that he will announce a renewed push for cancer research.

Other major pledges, which can take the form of donations, volunteer time, business investments, or changes in how a company operates, will include efforts to develop renewable energy, conserve forests, feed impoverished students abroad, and prevent the spread of parasitic worms among schoolchildren in Africa and elsewhere.

“When you bring all these people together, all these unlikely partners, great things happen,” said Gene B. Sperling, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in Washington, who oversees the event’s education program, which is one of the priorities for the meetings. The others are health, climate change and energy, and poverty.

“You create positive momentum; you create partnerships,” said Mr. Sperling. “That’s the heart of the Clinton Global Initiative.”

‘Think Big’

Indeed, charity leaders often prowl the plush halls of the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, where the event is held every year, to shake hands with Bono, chief executives of Fortune 500 companies, and other potential contributors.

It’s an expensive fund-raising effort — the cost to attend is $20,000. (Officials from 100 charities are allowed to attend free, usually because they are speaking on a panel; the rest must pay.)

But most people said it is worth the expense.

While playing down the “myth” that the event has “people hanging out with large checks saying, Where have you been all my life,” John Wood, the founder and chief executive of Room to Read, has been able to use the event as a platform to raise money — and ambitions.

In 2007, prompted by Mr. Sperling to “think big,” Mr. Wood announced the goal of building 5,000 libraries in developing countries by 2010.

Being on stage with a former president to make such a pledge helped spur a $5-million gift, which is the largest in the San Francisco group’s eight-year history, and in part allowed Mr. Wood to expand the goal to constructing 7,000 libraries.

“We use the CGI to talk to prospective donors,” he said. “It really opened up some conversations.”

Philanthropy Matchmaking

Perhaps one reason Mr. Clinton likes to play the role of philanthropy matchmaker is that the former president himself sympathizes with the demands of raising money year in and year out.

While the William J. Clinton Foundation, which the Clinton Global Initiative is a part of, derives some of its $130-million budget from speaking fees Mr. Clinton donates, the majority of it comes from governments, foundations, and individuals.

Mr. Clinton told The Chronicle that fund raising is his biggest challenge.

“There’s an infinite amount of things to be done, everybody has good intentions, they think we’re good at turning good intentions into concrete changes, so there’s always a greater demand for what we can do than we can fund,” he said.

When asked if he feels pressure to make sure the gathering brings in greater amounts of money each year for charity, however, he answered No. “What I do feel pressure to do every year is to try and impact a very large number of people,” he said.

While ambitious programs may be on the agenda, this year Mr. Clinton is stressing that bigger is not necessarily better.

“One of the things that we’ve proved is that you can do an enormous amount of good with a relatively small amount of money,” he said.

The Clinton Global Initiative is making several other changes as well:

• The organizers want to have more “mega-commitments,” in which multiple partners agree to work on a single pledge.

• Next week’s event will give more attention to old commitments, inviting donors to discuss what lessons they have learned from previous years’ pledges. “CGI members are trying to change the world, but that often involves roadblocks and difficulties,” said David B. Sandalow, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, who is running the climate-change part of the meeting.

• The event will also include an exhibit on what charities have accomplished related to their Clinton projects.

• Charity leaders from the developing world will get fund-raising training to help them make pitches directly to philanthropists. At previous conferences, American and European nonprofit executives were monopolizing the opportunities, said one event organizer privately. “They know how to work the crowd,” she said. “We need to level the playing field.”

One characteristic of the Clinton Global Initiative that distinguishes it from other philanthropy meetings is that its host demands that participants make pledges — or they do not get invited back.

While the organization does not release the names of those who don’t follow through, it does give numbers. In 2006, 17 people were not invited back, while last year it was five.

One high-profile dud from 2006 was the $50-million pledge by Raefaello Follieri, the Italian real-estate mogul. Mr. Follieri pleaded guilty last week to fraud and money-laundering charges; according to Vanity Fair magazine, the commitment remains unfulfilled.

Ms. Kahane, who oversees the Clinton commitments, would only say that for next week’s event “less than 12″ people have yet to make a pledge. Her team is working with them to craft a commitment of some kind.

Ms. Kahane, a former Ford Foundation program officer, said the Clinton Global Initiative is doing more to monitor the progress of pledges.

For instance, she and her staff of 11 comb through what charities and others say in annual reports and other public documents, and then ask the commitment-makers tough questions to help guide their projects.

“The monitoring process is a tool for reflection,” she said.

‘Gaming the System’

Despite the work to make participants accountable, some charity workers are dubious of what the Clinton Global Initiative has accomplished and the estimate that Mr. Clinton has garnered $38-billion.

Operation USA’s Mr. Walden said part of that figure is “faux commitments” because it includes money that some charities hope to raise, not money in hand, and because charities redraft work they would do regardless and pitch it as a new project.

Said Mr. Walden: “Some of the NGO’s are gaming the system.”

Ms. Kahane disagreed, saying charities can only propose a new effort, or at least the expansion of an existing one. And if a nonprofit organization pledges to raise a certain amount of money, Ms. Kahane does ask herself if it’s an attainable goal before approving it.

To supporters of Mr. Clinton’s annual gathering, criticisms such as Mr. Walden’s overlook the good that the former president is accomplishing. “Sure, there are these people who are announcing things they would do anyway,” said Mr. Sperling, “but I wouldn’t be spending this much time [organizing the event] if I didn’t see great things happening.”

For his part, Mr. Clinton said the conference largely attracts serious humanitarians and not people just looking for a moment in the spotlight with the former commander in chief.

Said Mr. Clinton: “The whole thing is voluntary, so it depends on the good faith of the people involved. Almost every one of the people who come and participate in our work is doing it to do good.”