Clinton Foundation officials said they have no plans to cancel any Cinton Global Initiative events. | Getty 2016 Clinton Foundation on collision course with campaign Charity officials are under pressure to scale back lavish events.

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation ― increasingly seen as a distraction by supporters of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid ― is considering dialing back its activity during the campaign and a potential Clinton presidency, according to interviews and documents obtained by POLITICO.

With its packed slate of events already colliding with the presidential election calendar and donors growing wary, the foundation has commissioned a study from the powerhouse Boston Consulting Group on how to improve the foundation’s showcase endeavor, the Clinton Global Initiative, or CGI, while a 2015 study flagged concerns that Clinton's presidential campaign could hurt a separate project, the Clinton Health Access Initiative.


Foundation CEO Donna Shalala late last year warned staff of possible restructuring and election year uncertainty and wouldn’t guarantee that CGI would follow through with plans for its flashy annual meeting in September, according to sources familiar with her conversations with staff.

Supporters of Hillary Clinton’s campaign privately grumble that the foundation is diverting the attention of her husband, former President Bill Clinton — as well as key donors — at a pivotal moment in the presidential campaign. They argue that CGI should suspend planned events during the primaries and just before the general election.

“Gosh, can't they relax a bit on that work and focus on winning Iowa?” said one bundler. “But everyone is resigned to how they function, and presumes they know what they are doing.”

Clinton Foundation officials said they have no plans to cancel any CGI events in 2016, and they cast the Boston Consulting Group study as "a periodic customer service review," while Clinton's campaign declined to comment.

Sometimes it can be hard to escape the sense that the two entities are competing for bandwidth in the Clintons’ orbit, with top bundlers complaining anonymously about dueling fundraising appeals from the two entities.

With a week to go until Iowa’s pivotal caucuses, Hillary Clinton was holding a series of events in the frigid state, while Bill Clinton, her top surrogate, was in the sunny California desert presiding over a golf tournament in which the foundation is a partner and an annual foundation health care conference. And next week ― soon after the caucus and just a few days before the New Hampshire primary ― CGI is holding a major gathering in Manhattan slated to be headlined by Bill and Chelsea Clinton, the foundation’s vice chair, who is assuming an increasingly prominent role in both the foundation’s affairs and her mother’s campaign.

Other high-profile CGI events could run up against major campaign moments. CGI University, a project championed by Chelsea Clinton, is scheduled to hold a conference in Berkeley, California, in early April ― just before a crush of primaries that month. And CGI America is planning a mid-June meeting in Atlanta, a month before the Democratic National Convention. The foundation’s glitziest event ― CGI's annual meeting, which in the past has featured all manner of celebrities and dignitaries ― is scheduled for just seven weeks before the general election.

“CGI America in June in Atlanta will look too much like a pretend DNC, in a major Southern state, and they're worried about the media backlash,” said a source familiar with CGI internal discussions. “Can you imagine ― Trump would have a field day! And CGI's annual meeting is way too close to the actual election to risk the bad press,” the source said.

Foundation officials said "these events will take place," and added "President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton are scheduled to participate as they have in past years."

CGI, which seeks commitments from corporations, other nonprofits and governments around the world to tackle problems ranging from childhood obesity to Ebola, has become a particularly thorny subject for the Clintons. Sources tell POLITICO that the initiative was originally envisioned as a 10-year project that would be re-evaluated and likely phased out after the 2014 annual meeting. It was kept alive partly because it was regarded as the premiere platform for the foundation’s work ― and for Bill Clinton’s post-presidential legacy ― and partly because it was one of the foundation’s biggest revenue generators.

The calculus has started to change, foundation sources say, as the foundation raised a $250 million endowment to sustain itself during Hillary Clinton’s campaign and potential presidency, and as CGI became embroiled in political controversy. It became a target of GOP attacks for accepting huge donations from foreign governments and other entities that had business before the State Department during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. The foundation took some steps to address those concerns while Clinton was in Foggy Bottom, separating CGI from the corporate structure of the rest of the foundation and agreeing to vet foreign donations with the State Department, though some cash slipped through the cracks. And when Clinton launched her presidential campaign, she stepped down from the foundation board, and CGI agreed to limit foreign donations and cancel overseas meetings.

But the controversy ― combined with scrutiny of sloppy record-keeping and heavy spending ― has scared off some past CGI donors and big names.

During a conference call after the September 2015 CGI annual meeting in Manhattan, several CGI advisers, some of whom work for major corporations that have been big foundation donors, noted a drop in attendance, buzz and pledged commitments to the public-private partnerships discussed at the meeting. Some attributed the decline to the campaign controversies, while others worried about CGI's relevance in an age when other charities are holding similar events.

Payal Dalal, a corporate philanthropy official with Standard Chartered bank who has attended every CGI annual meeting, said that the 2015 installment had “fewer people, CEOs, lower energy,” according to official foundation notes from the call obtained by POLITICO. While Dalal speculated that this was probably the result of the concurrent meeting nearby of the United Nations General Assembly, she also said “People have expressed political concerns with the Secretary’s run.”

In emails with POLITICO this week, Dalal, who briefly worked at the foundation and has donated to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, declined to elaborate on her concerns or to say whether she thought CGI should suspend its meetings.

“As a program advisor to CGI and active contributor to issues of education and gender equality, I offered honest feedback in the spirit of improving subsequent CGI events. I believe in CGI’s partnership model and am confident it will have a successful 2016,” she wrote.

Dalal stressed she was not speaking for Standard Chartered, which has donated between $1 million and $5 million to the foundation. A bank spokesman said he was not sure whether the bank would continue as a CGI sponsor in 2016.

Jamie Bechtel, a CGI adviser who created a nonprofit to help women in developing countries with environmental challenges, on the conference call cited a POLITICO story about big names declining invitations to participate in CGI’s 2015 annual meeting and the difficulties in raising money for meetings at which Chelsea Clinton was featured as much as or more than her father.

“Is this going to be the last CGI? Can Chelsea carry it from here? Work needs to be done now to turn this around,” she said, according to the foundation’s notes.

In an email this week, though, Bechtel said “some of the shorthand you quote are inaccurate and are out of context. For example, in the ‘turn around’ note you reference, I was lamenting that reporters seem intent on reporting gossip or making speculations and that we need to ‘turn it around’ and focus on the important work companies, governments and people do through CGI to help millions of people around the world.”

And she said her question about Chelsea Clinton was less about whether she could carry the foundation forward and more about whether she wants to.

“I was referring to whether she would be willing to take on more of a role,” Bechtel said, adding that, while she was originally skeptical of Clinton’s gravitas, she has become a believer. “I had been wrongfully willing to reach a conclusion about Chelsea without ever haven given her the opportunity to prove herself. She has indeed proven herself on both issues and on strategy.”

But sources say corporate donors have expressed reservations about writing sponsorship checks to have their CEOs appear on CGI panels with Chelsea Clinton rather than her father. And some Clinton Foundation staffers bristled when she was elevated to become a named foundation principal. They found it haughty when official materials began referring to Clinton as “Dr. Chelsea Clinton” ― a title that stems from her 2014 Ph.D. in international relations from England’s prestigious Oxford University

“She would probably agree she is not yet at the level of unique convening capability of her father ― not that there are too many people who’ve got that, anyway,” said Derek Yach, a career philanthropy professional who runs the charitable arm of a major South African financial services firm that has donated at least $20,000 to the Clinton Foundation. “In some fields, she probably is getting there, like in health. She is seen as both having passion, technical knowledge and the charisma to bring people together,” said Yach, who has been an adviser to CGI for years.

During the CGI adviser call, according to the notes, he argued that much of CGI's programming has "been fatigued" and "doesn’t stimulate interest," and he called it “appalling” that actress Jessica Biel was featured with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in a panel on increasing opportunity at the 2015 annual meeting.

He conceded during an interview that around CGI there is “a little bit of caution until we know the result of the election.” But he said there is still “incredible enthusiasm” in the philanthropic world for the public-private partnership model he credited CGI with pioneering. “Now it’s accepted, and so a company putting some of their money behind CGI, what they’re expecting to get out is the sort of partnership that will solve some social problem that they know they need to solve and they can only solve with public sector, and that need will continue.”

It “would be a big issue” if Bill Clinton were to step away from the foundation, Yach acknowledged, but he compared it to the Rockefeller Foundation, where he used to work.

“John D. Rockefeller for the first decade or so was around, and people were worried probably 90 years ago, when he goes, is it going to dwindle? Well, it didn’t. It does go in a different format,” he said. “The institutions become more institutionalized, as opposed to being driven by a founder with passion and vision. But I suspect it will continue because there is a need for this kind of work.”