Might be a good idea if you read some of your links........They don't give money away, they do things with it.....
Last Thursday, Mr. Clinton arrived two hours late to an exuberant welcome at a health clinic about 60 miles north of Johannesburg. Children in zebra-striped loincloths sang as Mr. Clinton and Ms. Clinton made their entrance, and the former president enthusiastically explained how his foundation had helped the South African government negotiate large reductions in the price of drugs that halt the progress of HIV. Aaron Motsoaledi, South Africa’s minister of health, heaped praise on the effort. “Because of your help we are able to treat three and a half times more people than we used to,” he told the crowd.
The project is typical of the model pioneered by the Clinton Foundation, built around dozens of partnerships with private companies, governments, or other nonprofit groups. Instead of handing out grants, the foundation recruits donors and advises them on how best to deploy their money or resources, from helping Procter & Gamble donate advanced water-purification packets to developing countries to working with credit card companies to expand the volume of low-cost loans offered to poor inner city residents.
The foundation, which has 350 employees in 180 countries, remains largely powered by Mr. Clinton’s global celebrity and his ability to connect corporate executives, A-listers and government officials. On this month’s Africa trip, Mr. Clinton was accompanied by the actors Dakota Fanning and Jesse Eisenberg and the son of the New York City mayoral candidate John A. Catsimatidis, a longtime donor.
nytimes.com
Another philanthropy watchdog, CharityWatch, a project of the American Institute of Philanthropy, gave the Clinton Foundation an "A" rating.
Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of CharityWatch, told us by phone that its analysis of the finances of the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates found that about 89% of the foundation budget is spent on programming (or "charity"), higher than the 75% considered the industry standard.
By only looking at the amount the Clinton Foundation doled out in grants, Fiorina "is showing her lack of understanding of charitable organizations," Borochoff said. "She's thinking of the Clinton Foundation as a private foundation." Those kinds of foundations are typically supported by money from a few people, and the money is then distributed to various charities. The Clinton Foundation, however, is a public charity, he said. It mostly does its own charitable work. It has over 2,000 employees worldwide.
"What she's doing is looking at how many grants they write to other groups," Borochoff said. "If you are going to look at it that way, you may as well criticize every other operating charity on the planet."
In order to get a fuller picture of the Clinton Foundation's operations, he said, people need to look at the foundation's consolidated audit, which includes the financial data on separate affiliates like the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
"Otherwise," he said, "you are looking at just a piece of the pie."
Considering all of the organizations affiliated with the Clinton Foundation, he said, CharityWatch concluded about 89% of its budget is spent on programs. That's the amount it spent on charity in 2013, he said.
We looked at the consolidated financial statements (see page 4) and calculated that in 2013, 88.3% of spending was designated as going toward program services — $196.6 million out of $222.6 million in reported expenses.
We can't vouch for the effectiveness of the programming expenses listed in the report, but it is clear that the claim that the Clinton Foundation only steers 6% of its donations to charity is wrong, and amounts to a misunderstanding of how public charities work.
usatoday.com |
