Republicans are putting the Clinton Foundation at the center of their attacks on Hillary Clinton again, which is no surprise. Sometimes it’s helpful, when you’re hearing attacks on something, to know a little about it. So: What does the Clinton Foundation do?
Inside Philanthropy provides some details:
If you look at the Clinton Foundation’s consolidated expenses for 2014, which totaled $249 million, you’ll find that the biggest part of those expenses—57 percent—was for running the Clinton Health Access Initiative, or CHAI. Technically, CHAI is a freestanding nonprofit, and it files its own 990 tax return, but it is still roughly under the Clinton Foundation umbrella. CHAI was started in 2002 to focus on saving the “lives of people with HIV/AIDS in the developing world by dramatically scaling up antiretroviral treatment.” It has since expanded to address other health issues like malaria and maternal health, operating in some 35 countries. The Gates Foundation is CHAI’s biggest funder. It gave it over $60 million last year alone.
Meanwhile, the Clinton Foundation directly runs various programs tackling other problems. The largest of these, dollar-wise, is the Clinton Climate Initiative, which works to prevent deforestation, develop clean energy, and help island nations meet the climate challenge (as we’ve reported). As with CHAI, there’s nothing all that surprising about this effort, which is similar to other nonprofit work in the climate space. The government of Norway, which gives large amounts of money globally to slow deforestation, is among the top funders of CCI.
Okay, so HIV/AIDS treatment, malaria, maternal health, clean energy, preventing deforestation. The bulk of the Clinton Foundation’s money, according to this reporting, goes to these totally traditional activities for a public charity. Additionally, the Clinton Foundation told FactCheck.org that “Clinton Development Initiative staff in Africa train rural farmers and help them get access to seeds, equipment and markets for their crops” and “Clinton Health Matters staff work with local governments and businesses in the United States to develop wellness and physical activity plans.”
So there you have it. That’s what Donald Trump and a slew of other Republicans are attacking. As charitable work goes, it’s not exactly buying a Tim Tebow jersey, but we can’t all make that much of a difference in the world.
