Clintons Donated 9% of Their Income to Charitable Causes Over Eight Years

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the former president Bill Clinton made charitable contributions of $10.2-million from 2000 through 2007, or more than 9 percent of their total income, according to Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Clintons gave most of their charitable dollars to their family’s private foundation for distribution to nonprofit organizations.

Mrs. Clinton, a New York senator, and the former president had a total income of more than $109-million during those eight years and paid federal taxes of more than $33-million, said a press release from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

Mrs. Clinton has donated more than $1.1-million to charity from the earnings of her book It Takes a Village since it was published in 1996, the campaign said.

The former president has earned $6.3-million from his book Giving, which was published last year, and he donated $1-million of his income from that book to charity in 2007, the campaign said. (When the book was published, Mr. Clinton said that a portion of his proceeds from it would be contributed to nonprofit groups “that are doing their part to change the world.”)

Family Fund

The Clintons have supported a variety of charities through their Clinton Family Foundation, a private foundation they started in December of 2001 with a gift of $800,000 that uses an address in their hometown of Chappaqua, N.Y.

Like many private family foundations, the Clinton fund does not spend all the money it receives each year.

Private grant makers are required to spend only 5 percent, on average, of their assets each year for charitable purposes.

From 2002 through 2006, which is the most recent year for which tax returns are available, the Clintons put $6.7-million into their family foundation, and the foundation distributed $2.5-million in grants.

In 2006, for example, the Clintons provided their foundation with $1.6-million, and the fund made a total of $1.3-million in grants, including $100,000 to Blythedale Children’s Hospital, in Valhalla, N.Y.; $20,000 to the Shakespeare Theatre Company, in Washington; and $5,000 to WAMU-FM, a Washington public radio station at American University.

In 2005 Mr. and Mrs. Clinton together gave their foundation $1.8-million.

That year, their foundation made grants that totaled $549,000, including $100,000 to the U.S. Fund for Unicef for tsunami relief; $50,000 to Immanuel Baptist Church, in Little Rock, Ark.; and $10,000 to the Clinton Birthplace Foundation, in Hope, Ark.

The Clinton Family Foundation is separate from Mr. Clinton’s William J. Clinton Foundation, in Little Rock.

The Clintons’ tax returns and a news release about them appear on Senator Clinton’s campaign Web site.

Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who also is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, recently released tax returns for the years 2000 through 2006 (The Chronicle, April 3) and plans to release his 2007 tax return this month.

The Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has said he plans to release tax returns this month.