It is generally accepted that nonprofit board work generally involves policy, planning and evaluation. This "work" is the foundation for a board meeting its fiduciary duty of care. While the folks involved are big public names, it should be reinforcing that the board of the Clinton Foundation are doing their policy-making job when making policy about the source of the Foundation's money. Clearly the Foundation board has perhaps some additional factors to consider in their policy and fortunately for most nonprofit boards, doing their job is not so much under the microscope, but as described below in the Wall Street Journal article, the Clintons are just doing what any good board should be doing: making policy.
Clinton Foundation to Keep Foreign Donors
Board’s decision to continue accepting funding from some countries could become 2016 campaign issue
ENLARGEThe board of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has decided to continue accepting donations from foreign governments, primarily from six countries, even though Hillary Clinton is running for president, a summary of the new policy to be released Thursday shows.
The rules would permit donations from Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the U.K.—countries that support or have supported Clinton Foundation programs on health, poverty and climate change, according to the summary.
That means other nations would be prohibited from making large donations to the foundation. But those governments would be allowed to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative, a subsidiary of the foundation where companies, nonprofit groups and government officials work on solutions to global problems.
Ministers from any government would be allowed to attend meetings and appear on panels at the group’s meetings and their governments would be allowed to pay attendance fees of $20,000.
The new policy, which was designed to address growing concern that the donations would present a conflict of interest for a Hillary Clinton presidency, all but ensures that Mrs. Clinton’s links to the charity will be a feature of the emerging presidential campaign.
The campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last month, when asked about foreign contributions, Mrs. Clinton said she was “very proud of the work the foundation does” and noted that there are “hundreds of thousands of people who support the work of the foundation.”
The limits are meant to strike a balance between protecting existing programs while shielding the foundation and Mrs. Clinton from charges that foreign governments are buying influence through their donations, a person familiar with the foundation’s deliberations said. The foundation will begin to release donor names quarterly starting in July. Previously the names were released annually.
“By implementing this new, even stronger and more transparent policy, the Clinton Foundation is reinforcing its commitment to accountability while protecting programs that are improving the lives of millions of people around the world,” said Craig Minassian, spokesman for the Clinton Foundation.
As a direct result of the restrictions, officials will stop holding events around the world, beyond an event planned for Morocco in early May, which was considered too close to cancel. That event, the Clinton Global Initiative Middle East & Africa conference in Marrakesh, has been funded in part by a $1 million gift from a Moroccan-government owned phosphate-export company, OCP. A Clinton Global Initiative-Mediterranean meeting focused on the economy and scheduled for June in Athens is being canceled.
The six countries on the approved donor list are less controversial and politically sensitive than some who gave in 2014, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Still, even the allowed countries would pose issues for a Hillary Clinton administration. Canada’s Foreign Department has made Clinton Foundation donations and is also leading the charge to win approval for the Keystone XL pipeline. Germany and the U.K. are two of the five countries, including the U.S., that drafted an antinuclear accord with Iran. The U.S. and Germany also differ on how best to respond to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
The foundation plan will likely renew the foreign-gift controversy just as Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign launched this week. Earlier this year, Mrs. Clinton came under fire from both Democrats and Republicans when The Wall Street Journal reported that foreign donations to the foundation had resumed last year after a virtual halt when she served as secretary of state from 2009-13.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the new policy comes weeks after the Clinton Health Access Initiative, a charity affiliated with the Clinton Foundation, didn’t disclose millions of dollars in donations from countries including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Norway and the U.K. “The Clinton Foundation receiving foreign government funding as Hillary Clinton campaigns to be president should set off alarm bells,” Mr. Priebus said. “The fact that the Clinton Foundation previously failed to disclose foreign government donations should cast even greater doubt on any new policy.”
The new rules for the Clinton Health Access Initiative, an affiliated but separate charity, were expected to be somewhat less restrictive than the new Clinton Foundation rules, and hadn’t been completed on Wednesday. Officials said the missing disclosure was an oversight.
Ethics experts had recommended the foundation forego all foreign donations. Robert Walker, the former nonpartisan chief counsel and staff director of the Senate and House ethics committees, said the foundation likely will need to go further than its current plan.
“The only effective step would be for the foundation to cease accepting donations from foreign governments,” Mr. Walker said. “It is inevitable that the foundation will, sooner rather than later, decide to forego accepting donations from foreign governments, except for those pledges already on approved multiyear cycles.”
Under the new rules, approved countries would be allowed to renew multiyear pledges, or make additional contributions to new programs, an official said. Such funding would support economic development or climate-focused work of the Clinton Climate Initiative, the Clinton Development Initiative, which focuses on Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania, and the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership.
One example is a $12 million, three-year contract the Australian Department of Environment has with the Clinton Climate Initiative to create a system to monitor emissions in Kenya. The Australian pledge began in 2013 and continues until next year.
The Obama administration in 2009 wanted to avoid conflicts of interest with former President Bill Clinton raising money from foreign governments that also would be working with Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state. At the time, the Clinton Foundation agreed to stop raising new money from foreign governments, with a few exceptions for multiyear pledges for health and other initiatives.
Under the agreement with the Obama transition office, the Clinton Foundation agreed to separate the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative and to begin disclosing all donors to the foundation. The two groups won’t be divided under the new policy.
The terms also spelled out that Mr. Clinton wouldn’t solicit funds for CGI and wouldn’t send letters seeking contributions from potential CGI sponsors. Pledges and donations from foreign governments and government-owned companies were to be presented to the State Department for review by an ethics officer.
Documents released publicly so far under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch show that the ethics officer wasn’t asked to approve any new foreign donations beyond continuing pledges. The State ethics reviews are still being released.
Write to James V. Grimaldi at [email protected]