What is CGI? How does it work?

CGI started because, after a lifetime of attending meetings where people just talked about big problems and then went home, President Bill Clinton thought we should have a meeting where everyone who participated was asked to commit to actually doing something about those problems.

We would bring together a community of doers from a broad cross-section of society—the public sector, private sector, and big and small NGOs from all around the world—and then, we would ask everyone to publicly commit to specific actions to address our biggest challenges.

All we asked was that everyone try to do something. It turned out there was a hunger for the chance to create change and to do it with partners who might otherwise never have the opportunity to work together.

And because of that, there have now been more than 4,000 Commitments to Action that have improved the lives of more than 500 million people in more than 180 countries around the world.