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Conference Notebook
September 26, 2008
Clinton Global Initiative
Clinton Says $8-Billion Raised at Philanthropy Meeting
Bill Clinton ended his annual philanthropy conference by saying this year’s event triggered 250 commitments estimated to be worth $8-billion. These commitments can be in the form of donations, business investments, volunteer time, and other work.
As part of this total, he announced a $100-million commitment to rebuild Haiti, which was devastated by several hurricances recently. Saying he has a special place in his heart for the island nation, where he spent his honeymoon, Mr. Clinton called on stage the president of Haiti to thank almost a dozen people who are part of the effort.
The promises include distributing shoes to children and providing seeds and agricultural training to farmers.
Mr. Clinton said the Haitian project came together very quickly, pointing out that the actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt called him this morning to pledge to pay for the rebuilding of 12 schools.
“We want it better than before the storm hit,” the former president said about Haiti.
Clinton Global Initiative
U.K. Leader Sees Global Opportunity
During the last session of the Clinton Global Initiative, Gordon Brown, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, said the current financial crisis facing America can be an opportunity to improve the worldwide economy.
He said the problem can be a chance “to build a truly global society,” one which provides new jobs in the United States to replace the work that is being sent overseas and allows for resources, such as energy and food, to be cultivated and spread more evenly.
If the inequality between the rich and poor continues to grow, he said, so will tensions between them. Impoverished people will start asking more frequently, “Why can I not have some benefit from globalization that is happening around the world?”
While he said he understood the concerns of the anti-globalization movement, he said that the increasing connectedness of the world is inevitable.
As an example, he pointed out the irony of some protesters. During a visit to the International Monetary Fund, in Washington, he said he saw a sign that read: “Worldwide Campaign Against Globalization.”
Clinton Global Initiative
Philanthropy's Faults
A panel at the Clinton Global Initiative on philanthropy in rural areas sparked a broader discussion — and complaints — about charitable giving.
The discussion’s moderator, Steve Gunderson, president of the Council on Foundations, struggled to keep the speakers focused on the main topic when one of them, Wangari Muta Maathai, said that not enough is done to help Africans lift themselves out of poverty.
“You have to help these people rise up and walk,” said Ms. Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, a charity in Kenya.
Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church, which does antipoverty work in Rwanda and elsewhere, agreed. “So much of what we do in philanthropic development robs people of dignity, removes initiative, destroys their own economy. It’s actually counterproductive,” he said.
Good giving works like an injection of yeast into dough — a relatively small amount can have expansive results with the right ingredients, he said.
“There’s a way to give that sustains and there’s a way to give that makes people dependent,” he said.
For Native Americans, however, that type of positive contribution has been hard to come by from the government and philanthropy, said Elsie Meeks, president of First Nations Oweesta Corporation, a charity in Rapid City, S.D.
“Native American tribes are really under the radar for most folks. There’s poor in the United States, if we can’t solve that issue in the United States, how are we going to do it in any other country?” she asked.
“One of the largest foundations in this world has a new CEO and was getting educated by some of his program officers about some of the poorest people in the United States — Native American women — [and] he said, So what? His point was there’s not enough of us,” she said.
Concerned that the session was getting too negative, Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning founder of the Grameen Bank, said, “The message I think we don’t want to give as a panel is, Don’t give money for philanthropy. That’s not the message. The message is, Please do give, but it could be used much more powerfully.”
“Let’s not confuse things,” he said to the business executives and philanthropists in the crowd, “we need to share the wealth.”
Clinton Global Initiative
Mega-Commitments
During his annual philanthropy conference this year, Bill Clinton has tried to have more so-called mega-commitments — pledges by a large group of people focusing on often-overlooked global problems.
The big promises provide an insight into what the former president, and the scholars and philanthropy experts he hires to organize the conference, consider to be important issues.
So far, the mega-commitments have included money for clean water and sanitation, assistance to entrepreneurs in poor countries, mobile phones to link needy people to financial services, and programs to feed impoverished students.
Clinton Global Initiative
Star Power and Philanthropy
As with previous years, several celebrities are attending the Clinton Global Initiative this week to push for charitable causes they’re passionate about.
Among the Hollywood elite here: actress Drew Barrymore and actor Matt Damon.
Ms. Barrymore came to the event to promote international anti-hunger efforts. Mr. Damon spoke about his support for programs that provide clean water and sanitation to people in Africa and other impoverished regions.
Speaking to reporters alongside a group of charity and foundation leaders, Mr. Damon acknowledged his somewhat odd position. “Alright, who invited the stupid actor and why is he batting clean-up on this excellent panel?” he asked to laughter.
Despite the humor, Mr. Damon spoke passionately about water issues. He said a 14-year-old African girl inspired him to become an antipoverty advocate when he learned she wanted to move to a big city and become a nurse; such dreams reminded him of his own aspirations as a teenager to become an actor. And he realized that young men and women in poor areas will only have those hopes if they have access to functioning wells and toilets.
Mr. Damon’s celebrity life, however, came crashing back when a German reporter asked him if he wants to make movies with positive messages after playing a “gangster” in the Ocean’s Eleven series.
“This is kind of where my life goes into the surreal,” he said.
Clinton Global Initiative
Clinton and the News Media
Perhaps more than any other event on philanthropy, the Clinton Global Initiative attracts a huge number of journalists from around the world.
This year, more than 1,000 reporters attended, according to a spokesman for the conference.
But given such an influx of scribes and broadcasters, the Clinton team places restrictions on them. Starting with last year’s meeting, reporters are not allowed to mingle with participants unless escorted by a Clinton staff member, event volunteers stand guard to prevent reporters from breaching restricted areas, and cocktail parties that were open to the press two years ago are now closed.
To be sure, the Clinton Global Initiative has always kept a tight rein on reporters. Since its start in 2005, journalists have been barred from sessions on specific topics — the so-called breakouts.
These sessions are broadcast live on televisions to the press room, but the broadcast goes dead when participants are asked to brainstorm about ways to fix global problems. Clinton officials say that if the press were in the rooms, attendees would be less candid about what they think are the solutions to social ills.
September 25, 2008
Clinton Global Initiative
Gates Promises $168.7-Million For Malaria Vaccine
During a meeting at the United Nations today, Bill Gates said his foundation is awarding $168.7-million to create a malaria vaccine.
The money will support work by PATH, a large health nonprofit group in Seattle, to develop a potential anti-malaria drug with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.
“I’m very hopeful that the malaria vaccine currently in advanced testing will be proven effective, but that will just be the first step,” said Mr. Gates. “Now it’s time to develop a new generation of vaccines that are even more effective, and could someday help eradicate malaria altogether.”
The grant was announced as world leaders said they plan to eradicate malaria by 2015.
In addition to the Gates grant, other private contributions to anti-malaria work announced today include $1.6-billion from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria to pay for the distribution of bed nets; $2-million from the United Nations Foundation; and $28-million from Marathon Oil, in Houston, to increase malaria prevention projects in Equatorial Guinea.
Clinton Global Initiative
Broad Promises $6-Million Education-Research Gift
Philanthropist Eli Broad promised $6-million to develop a new education research center at Harvard University today as part of the Clinton Global Initiative.
The Education Innovation Laboratory, or EdLabs, will foster new ways to solve problems with K-12 education, such as racial inequity in graduation rates, and rigorously study the programs that do work, said Mr. Broad.
“The National Institutes of Health is the engine for scientific and medical research, and the Defense Advanced Research Project develops innovations in technology and security, but K-12 education has no R&D agency,” he said.
He said no similar effort exists at other higher-education institutions or within the Department of Education.
“It’s a niche that had to be filled,” the donor said.
EdLabs will first work with three school districts — Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C.
“We need to think about innovation in an entirely different way,” said Joel I. Klein, chancellor of the the New York City school system. He thanked Mr. Broad and his wife, Edythe, for their long-term support of U.S. education. “This is not a sexy field for philanthropy,” he said.
Clinton Global Initiative
New Philanthropic Pledges
During today’s Clinton Global Initiative, several large philanthropy commitments were made:
• The YUM! Brands restaurant company promised to give $80-million over the next five years to anti-hunger groups to provide meals to school children. The majority of that pledge — $50-million — will support the World Food Programme.
• The PepsiCo Foundation pledged $7.6-million to provide access to safe water and sanitation to people in poor countries. WaterPartners International, in Kansas City, Mo., will receive $4.1-million, and Safe Water Network, in Westport, Conn., will get $3.5-million.
• Mercy Corps, an aid group in Portland, Ore., said it is starting a multimedia center to educate the general public about hunger issues. The so-called Action Center to End World Hunger will open next month in New York and will feature exhibits on the experience of aid workers abroad, the causes of global poverty, and what visitors can do to alleviate such problems.
Clinton Global Initiative
Presidential Candidates Pledge To Fight Poverty
Amid presidential election drama and the negotiations for a bailout of the U.S. financial system, both Barack Obama and John McCain took time today to speak to participants of the Clinton Global Initiative.
While the senators discussed the $700-billion federal plan to curb the financial crisis, they also made broad commitments to fight climate change, end deadly diseases, and eradicate global poverty.
Mr. McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said he would improve how the federal government provides assistance abroad. “We should and must reform our aid programs to make sure they are serving the interest of people in need, and not just serving special interests in Washington,” he said.
In the White House, he said, he would build upon the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other nonprofit groups to eliminate malaria, prevent tuberculosis, and improve maternal and child health.
“Promoting development, creating opportunities, and eliminating disease do not only serve our national interests; they also accord with our deepest American values,” he said.
After his speech, Bill Clinton thanked Mr. McCain’s wife, Cindy, for her charitable work in Rwanda.
Mr. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, spoke via satellite and proposed a government partnership with businesses and nonprofit groups to create jobs by supporting small and mid-sized companies in developing countries. Its first project would be to invest in efforts to produce and distribute bed nets to prevent the spread of malaria, he said.
He also pledged a $2-billion government program to provide primary education to girls and boys around the world, an effort originally proposed by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“There is suffering across the globe that doesn’t need to be tolerated in the 21st century,” he said. “And it leads to pockets of instability that provide fertile breeding grounds for threats like terror and the smuggling of deadly weapons that cannot be contained by the drawing of a border or the distance of an ocean.”
Copyright © 2008 The Chronicle of Philanthropy