Press Release: Facts about the Clinton Foundation

“Since leaving office in January 2001, the former president has sought to use his clout, connections and charisma to be a catalyst in building and supporting nonprofit institutions that tackle some of the world’s most daunting problems and encourage everyday citizens, especially young people, to serve their communities.”

— The Chronicle of Philanthropy

The William J. Clinton Foundation is a charitable organization established by President Clinton to construct the Clinton President Center and to pursue four missions:

Health Security
Economic Empowerment
Leadership Development and Citizen Service
Racial, Ethnic and Religious Reconciliation

The Clinton Foundation has promoted economic empowerment primarily through the Clinton Foundation Small Business Initiative, which brings business and consulting experts together with small business owners to help them succeed. More than 44,000 volunteer hours (valued at over $8 million) were spent during the pilot program in Harlem. In 2004, the program was expanded to Brooklyn and the Bronx.

The Clinton Foundation has also helped empower poor people by partnering with organizations like the Robin Hood Foundation to educate people about the Earned Income Tax Credit; Save the Music to promote music education in public schools; Operation Hope to encourage financial literacy among young people; Ember Media to creative interactive guides to college and financial aid for Hispanic and African American students; the Princeton Review to help underserved students improve their scores on standardized tests; and Hernando de Soto’s Foundation for Building the Capital of the Poor in Ghana.

President Clinton encourages reconciliation of people along racial, religious and ethnic lines, saying that we need to build a global community of “shared responsibilities, shared benefits and shared values.”

The president helped launch the William J. Clinton International Peace Centre in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, which functions as a venue for peace and public service programs.

President Clinton serves as honorary co-chair of the Club of Madrid, which is comprised of former heads of state that promote democratization; and he chairs the board of the Global Fairness Initiative, which seeks a more equitable and sustainable approach to globalization.

Citizen service was a hallmark of the Clinton Administration, and remains an important part of the Clinton Foundation’s work. The Clinton Foundation has worked closely with City Year, a global service organization. Together, they have supported the Clinton Democracy Fellowship program, which brings young people from South Africa to America each year to study national service.

The Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, located on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, is the first graduate school in the nation wholly dedicated to public service education. President Clinton will play a key role in helping attract lecturers and scholars in residence for the new school.

“Former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s foundation, which launched its HIV/AIDS Initiative little more than 18 months ago, has quickly become a major force in fighting the pandemic.”

— The Wall Street Journal

The Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) helped reduce the price of medicine and tests for people with AIDS in the developing world by 50 to 70 percent, making it possible to bring life-sustaining assistance to many more people at much reduced costs. CHAI has partnered with a number of countries in Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and the former Soviet Union to help them scale up care and treatment programs for people with AIDS, and is working with the World Health Organization, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, UNAIDS, the UN World Food Programme and a number of care partners to ensure that more of the millions of people with AIDS who need medicine and other forms of care and treatment can receive it.

President Clinton has also helped other charitable organizations raise hundreds of millions of dollars for their work. Recently, Presidents Clinton and Bush joined together to raise money for the tsunami relief effort. The Clinton Foundation is also a partner with UNICEF to raise funds for the tsunami relief. Other partnerships include: the Families of Freedom scholarship fund. He and Bob Dole teamed up to help raise more than $100 million to provide educational assistance to the families of the victims of September 11. The president also encouraged the establishment of the American India Foundation, which is dedicated to accelerating social and economic change in India, and has provided substantial relief to communities devastated by an earthquake in Gujarat.

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Learn more about our work at https://www.clintonfoundation.org/about, on Facebook at Facebook.com/ClintonFoundation and on Twitter @ClintonFdn.