Bill Clinton's Humanitarian Focus

Sept. 25, 2007 — -- Former President Bill Clinton kicked off his third annual Clinton Global Initiative summit in New York Wednesday, rubbing shoulders with current and former heads of state like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Hollywood star turned global activist Angelina Jolie.

Launched in 2005, the Clinton Global Initiative is a nonprofit run by the former president's charitable foundation -- the William J. Clinton Foundation -- billing itself as a results-oriented body coordinating private-sector solutions to global problems like climate change, global health epidemics, poverty, income inequality and lack of education.

"We are faced with complex problems that government either is not solving, or that government alone cannot," Clinton said Wednesday morning during the opening session of the three-day conference at the Sheraton Hotel in New York.

"We have to find ways to devote more time, money, skills, and organization building so that we can help more people and save more lives," Clinton said.

Only the who's who of global philanthropy and business are invited to attend the annual three-day brainstorming session.

This year's event has attracted 1,300 people from 72 countries, including 52 current and former heads of state, celebrities, business leaders and aid workers.

Attendance costs $15,000 per person, though most charities are exempt. Membership in Clinton's elite philanthropic club comes with an even bigger price and a global charge: invited guests must make good on their pledges. Those who do not are asked not to come back.

So far that strategy appears to be working. Only five people who paid their membership fee to attend this year were refunded their money and asked not to come because of unfulfilled promises. That number is down from 17 people last year who were asked not to attend.

Philanthropists say Clinton's group's results-oriented approach is having a major influence on other nonprofits.