BREAKING NEWS
September 7, 2006
The Power of Philanthropy
Welcome to the world of the Clinton Foundation - which, it should be said at the outset, is not a foundation at all in the traditional sense, because it has no money of its own. What it does have, of course, is Bill Clinton and all he brings with him: what Dr. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund, calls his "personal bully pulpit"; what Bob Carson, outgoing chairman of the American Heart Association, calls his "mind-boggling convening power"; what Doug Band, who began as Clinton's personal aide in the White House and now carries the title of counselor, calls his "ability to motivate people and move mountains."

"We take a lot of cues from the business world," says Clinton, who these days can sound more like a CEO than a politician. "We have very entrepreneurial people and a very entrepreneurial process. We identify a problem, we analyze it, and we move." Much of his staff comes from business, and he says using business practices "allows us to do a lot with relatively small resources."

The foundation's 2006 budget is just $30 million; next year it will roughly double.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, by contrast, has a $30 billion endowment. "Yeah, I'd like to have his money," says Clinton of Gates. "But I think our way adds value. It's kind of a pain to always ask for financing, but perhaps it forces you to look closely." "We have a culture of getting s**t done. It is very empowering and very unforgiving," says Anil Soni, a former McKinsey consultant who is now COO of Clinton's HIV/AIDS initiative. "Ira and Clinton will say, 'People are going to die tomorrow if we don't do this.' And it's true."

Certainly nobody soaks up the spotlight like Clinton - of course he got together with Madonna to discuss what they might do to save Malawi.

Like the Gates Foundation and Robin Hood, the Clinton Foundation is part of a new turn in philanthropy, in which the lines between not-for-profits, politics, and business tend to blur. In this hardheaded philanthropic world, outcomes matter more than intentions, influence isn't measured in dollars alone, and you hear buzzwords like "scalability," "sustainability," and "measurability" all the time. As Clinton says, "It's nice to be goodhearted, but in the end that's nothing more than self-indulgence."
Fortune