Clinton Climate Initiative ……………………… $8,293,416

Reported impact: “Over 33,500 tons of greenhouse gas emissions are being reduced annually across the U.S. through our building retrofit and HEAL programs.”

Both of those programs mentioned are government-funded and one of the two is a small regional loan program for energy efficiency retrofits. The Clinton Foundation is one of thousands of nonprofit organizations, local, regional or state government agencies, for-profit corporations and utilities that participates in government-funded carbon emission reduction programs.

By using the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas equivalency calculator, the “impact” of this expenditure is easily compared.

Los Angeles gives away over 2 million free compact fluorescent bulbs a year (and began in 2007). Seattle gives away nearly 400,000 such bulbs. As to wind turbines, for-profit energy ventures installed more than 5,000 MW (megawatts) of wind energy generating turbines in the 4th quarter of 2015 alone: 100 times the stated “impact” of the Clinton Foundation’s government-funded efforts.

The cost per ton of $247.56 in CO2 reduction is grossly inefficient (as can be seen with common sense from the lightbulb and wind turbine comparisons).

It’s more than the highest possible cost estimated by the EPA for 2050!

Clinton Global Initiative ……………………..$23,544,381

The Clinton Global Initiative hosts huge Gala meetings that serve as PR vehicles for well-known attendees. CGI America was held in June in Atlanta. Most attendees pay $20,000 and up. At the Galas, attendees sit and hear panel speeches, watch videos, get reports on various issues (like “climate change”) and sign up for a “Commitment to Action” if they desire. The “Commitment to Action” is a non-binding agreement of “improvement” in whatever area the individual or organization thinks they ought to be working in. Since the majority of the attendees represent corporations or international finance, they “agree” to make various improvements in business they conduct.

Attendees and speakers at this year’s Gala include Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Ursula Burns (Xerox CEO), Jim Yong Kim (President of the World Bank Group), Hemant Kanoria (Chairman and Managing Director of Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd.) and many other global corporate luminaries.

Membership is by invitation only.

Those who attend the meetings also receive the benefits illustrated below:

According to the Clinton Foundation, “more than 3,400 ‘Commitments to Action’” have been made “to date” — and a blog post records that “123 new Commitments to Action were signed in 2015.”

Let’s divide 123 into $23,544,381 and see what we get:

$191,417.73

Reasonable!

Let’s see if we can find a typical “Commitment to Action.”

No funds of the Clinton Foundation are expended to do any of the work or “action” in the Commitment to Action. The organization/corporation that makes the Commitment is agreeing to undertake the stated Action and obtain the identified outcomes or results on their own. The “Commitment” is supposed to be reported on back to the Clinton Foundation each year.

Note item #3

My personal favorite of these “Commitments to Action” is McDonalds, signed with the theoretically separate organization The Alliance for A Healthier Generation (but the document says “Clinton Global Initiative” and so do all press releases).

We all have common sense.

So is McDonalds agreeing to give customers a choice of a side salad, fruit or vegetable as a substitute in value meals a CHARITABLE GOOD DONE FOR THE WORLD?

Did this cost Clinton Foundation anything? Was any donation made to that Foundation by anybody, whether Lebanese-Nigerian businessman or Saudi Arabia or government of Sweden, going to provide the funds for getting McDonalds to pay to attend the big annual Gala and rub elbows with Richard Branson & Bill Gates and Hollywood celebrities and the Clintons so they could say they would give fruit, salad or veggies with value meals? There are dozens of press releases about this amazing achievement.

But then there’s a fun nutrition or children’s well-being message on the Happy Meal panels, isn’t there?

Oh PS — the “estimated value” on this one is $35 million. That’s according to McDonalds.

As far as legal considerations are concerned, there is little to nothing about the Clinton Global Initiative and CGI University (the “junior” version — 70 universities pay $80,000 and students also pay to “attend” its meeting and sign their own Eagle Scout-type “Commitments to Action” zero funded by Clinton Foundation) that are tax-exempt. The closest scenario would be a trade association or business league (i.e. Chamber of Commerce). Absolutely nothing like an actual Public Charity to which donations are considered exempt, and activities “charitable.”

Clinton Development Initiative………………………$4,482,714

We’re going to do this one the other way around. While the Clinton Foundation states it spends nearly $25 million a year on gala meetings for Fortune 500 companies, global financiers, government officials and celebrities to pat themselves on the back, the Foundation states it is “catalyzing economic empowerment through agribusiness development” in its Development Initiative. This work is stated to “impact more than 105,000 farmers in Malawi, Rwanda, and Tanzania” to increase “their yields and incomes.”

So, we divide 105,000 into $4.48 million. That is a remarkably efficient cost of $42.69 cents per farmer “catalyzed.”

One specific project mentioned is the Anchor Farm Project in Malawi. The Anchor Farm Project “integrates commercial farming and smallholder farmer outreach, providing farmers with access to inputs, agronomic knowledge, and markets.” It supposedly “reaches” 56,000 farmers with 76 “full time staff.”

So, if we divide this out, each of these staff members would be responsible to “reach” 737 farmers a year. Each staff member would be able to spend 2.8 hours with each farmer. That works out to a very generous Malawi wage of $15.2 an hour — except it also notes that there are over 400 part-time, seasonal “workers.”

None of that is real, however, The project was set to be managed and evaluated by the University of Illinois in 2014. There is no evidence the evaluation or management process took place; however, the job description for the evaluator is available on the internet. As with everything connected to the Clinton Foundation, the information about individuals and countries actually conducting work is grossly divergent from reality and what is provided on the Clinton Foundation website.

The goal was to try to “reach” 100,000 farmers by 2016. There were problems noted with the previous program and they were trying to accomplish something after failures. The University of Illinois program was seeking to work with a very ambitious 250 villages and a variety of farm demonstration and training programs.

This is the farm. If you have ever been around agriculture, that is a dry, fallow field and posed tractor. The actual operators are funded by USAID — this is from DevEx — that’s right it is NOT Clinton Foundation money directly it’s from the U.S. government and taxpayer. Again.

Active peanut field with nuts illustrated by farmer.

This article from DevEx Impact publication of USAID is written by the project director, Keith Polo.

So who works for whom and who pays whom?

It is impossible to tell.

I very much doubt Keith Polo has access to $4.48 million annually from the Clinton Foundation. The Tukula Farming Company appears to be a separate corporation and is seeking foreign investment.