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Clinton Bush Haiti Fund

Formation:

2010
Dissolution:

2012

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The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund was a nonprofit that was created in 2010 to provide aid to victims of the catastrophic earthquake that struck the nation of Haiti in 2010.  Although the fund was legally separate from the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Foundation received grants from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. The fund dissolved in 2012, transferring $10.5 million of its assets to the Inter-American Development Bank, a multinational financial institution that which continued the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund programs, and $2.5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Origins

On January 12, 2010, a massive earthquake struck Haiti. Four days later, President Barack Obama announced the creation of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, in an event at the White House attended by former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. President Obama stated that the fund would be modeled after a similar fund headed by Clinton and former President George H.W. Bush that aided victims of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami that struck Sri Lanka and other Indo-Pacific nations. 1

The earlier fund, President Obama stated, showed “this is a model (of aid) that works” as the fund that aided Sri Lankan victims was an effort “that raised substantial resources for victims of that disaster, money that helped save lives, deliver aid, and rebuild communities.  And that’s exactly what the people of Haiti need right now.” 2

Funding

In his speech announcing the fund, President Obama called on Americans to donate to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund because “responding to a disaster must be the work of all of us.” 3

Notable Celebrity Donors

President Obama led the donation effort by contributing $200,000 of the $1.4 million he received for winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. 4   Actors and sports stars also contributed, often with seven-figure donations. Leonardo DiCaprio donated $1 million to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund shortly before the broadcast of “Hope for Haiti Now,” a national telethon benefitting the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and other Haiti-based relief charities and featuring performances by Haitian musician Wyclef Jean and international music figures Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and Taylor Swift. 5

The National Basketball Association pledged $1 million to charities aiding Haitian victims, and some players pledged to give donations based on their scores in games.  At a ceremony honoring the Los Angeles Lakers, the 2009 NBA champions, President Obama praised Lakers stars Jordan Farmar and Pau Gasol for their personal donations to the fund. “Pau pledged $1,000 for every point he scored against the Knicks,” the president said, “and I’m glad he dropped 20,” meaning that Gasol had just donated $20,000 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund for scoring 20 points. 6

In addition, the Wasserman Media Group, which represented 47 NBA players, said it would donate at least $500,000 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. One of the group’s clients, Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose, was proud that his 32 points against the Phoenix Suns led to a $32,000 donation. “It makes you feel good to donate and help others,” Rose told the Chicago Tribune.  He promised to score a lot in the future because “the more I score, the more I help out.” 7

In April 2010, the Council of Fashion Designers of America donated $1 million to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund from sales of 100,000 $25 “Fashion for Haiti” t-shirts designed by Peter Arnell.  President Clinton personally thanked council members at a luncheon and promised the money would be used to buy solar-powered flashlights for homeless people camped out at Haiti’s only golf club. 8

Public Contributions

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund also received donations from scores of small donors.  Amirikis Louis Smith, 8, sent his allowance to the White House, saying he wanted to relieve “the suffering of the people in Haiti.” President Obama praised Smtih’s donation in the State of the Union Address, saying the donation represented “the fundamental decency that has always been at the core of the American people.” 9

In Pocatello, Idaho, Haitian emigres held a $12-a-plate barbecue dinner at an Elks lodge, with proceeds split between the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and another nonprofit, Yele Haiti. Among the prizes was 400 pounds of potatoes. 10

In Hesperia, California, students studying to become “cosmetologists, nail technicians, and aestheticians” raised $487 for the fund in five hours of fundraising. “We cut hair, did nails, did facials from 9 to 2,” cosmetology teacher Jodi Harris told the Victorville Daily Press.  “It was great.” 11

Controversies

Some donations to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund came from ethically questionable sources. Singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter donated $1 million, proceeds from a five-song private concert held on the French Caribbean island of St. Barts on December 31, 2009 for Muatassim Qaddafi, son of then-ruling Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. A spokesperson for Beyoncé stated the singer did not know the “third-party promoter” who organized the concert “was linked to the Qaddafi family” and donated her fee to charity once the connection to the son of the Libyan tyrant was made. 12

Reality television star Michaele Salahi auctioned off the sari-like dress she used to crash a White House state dinner in 2009 and promised 80 percent of proceeds of the sale to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.  The dress was auctioned for $7,000, which meant the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund received $5,600. 13

At least one contributor to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund also was a contributor to the Clinton Foundation and successfully lobbied for an appointment to a government advisory board. In a 2012 article in Crain’s Chicago Business, Raj Fernando, head of Chopper Trading, a stock-trading company, said his firm had donated $100,000 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund over the past two years because “when we see a good charity, we want to help.” 14

Fernando did not tell Crain’s Chicago Business that he had also given the Clinton Foundation between $1 million and $5 million. Emails released by the conservative advocacy group Citizens United to ABC News showed that Fernando had been appointed to the International Security Advisory Board, which advises the State Department on the use of tactical nuclear weapons and other high-level national security issues. He was given a top-secret clearance, even though he had no experience in national security when he was appointed.  Fernando resigned from the board in August 2011 after ABC News reporter Matthew Mosk asked State Department public affairs officials about Fernando’s qualifications to be on the board. 15

Operations

In its three years of operations, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund started spending slowly, then increased its spending in its remaining two years of existence.

Financials

In 2010, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund reported revenue of $49.8 million and expenses of $8.8 million. Its largest grants went to YouthBuild USA ($1.6 million), CHF International ($970,000), and Architecture for Humanity ($820,000). 16

In 2011, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund reported revenue of $1 million and expenses of $15.1 million and made grants of over $1 million to PADF ($2.0 million), Partners in Health ($1.8 million), TechnoServe ($1.6 million), International Medical Corps ($1.6 million), and Root Capital ($1 million). 17

In 2012, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund reported $300,000 in revenue and $20.7 million in expenses. It made grants of over $1 million to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation ($3.0 million), the Clinton Foundation ($2.5 million), United Nations Office ($2 million), and J/P Haitian Relief Organization ($1.3 million). 18

Approach

When the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund’s 2010 tax returns were released, the fund received criticism for the slow pace of its donations. Fund spokeswoman Meg Galloway Pearce told the Orlando Sentinel “we certainly are not trying to hold back our funds. We’re trying to put out money where we can.  We just want to make sure we do it in a smart way.” Galloway Pearce added “anyone familiar with Haiti knows things just take longer in Haiti.” 19

The Orlando Sentinel reported that the fund decided to focus “on promoting economic growth and on fostering job creation, more than on delivering basic necessities.” 20  One enterprise the fund contributed to was a partnership between Coca-Cola, the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. government, and the fund to help Haitian farmers grow mangoes used for Odwalla Haiti Hope Mango Lime Aid, made by a division of Coca-Cola. The project received $7.5 million, including $3.5 million from Coca-Cola, $3 million from the bank, $1 million from the U.S. government, and $500,000 from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. 21 TechnoServe also received grants from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund for the Haitian Business Accelerator, which the fund said would, over three years, identify businesses “that are worthy of investment and transforming them into businesses that are ready for investment.” 22

Another Clinton Bush Haiti Fund program assisted artisans in selling their crafts in U.S. retail chains such as Macy’s and Anthropologie. Products made by these artisans included picture frames and “papier-mâché busts of zebras and rhinos made from “old books, cement bags, and French-language newspapers,” according to the Los Angeles Times. 23

Willa Shalit, CEO of Fairwinds Trading, received $174,832 as a loan from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to expand her imports of products made by Haitian artisans, said that demand for these products had increased because “all of a sudden Haiti was on everybody’s minds.” 24

Evaluating Impact

In December 2012, The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund announced it would shut down operations. The fund claimed that it had “sustained or created 7,350 jobs, trained 20,050 people, and affected more than 311,000 lives, from at-risk youth to farmers to entrepreneurs to doctors.” 25 The fund divided its remaining $13 million in uncommitted assets, giving $10.5 million to the Inter-American Development Bank (which continued the fund’s programs) and $2.5 million to the Clinton Foundation. 26

Jonathan M. Katz, who covered the Haitian earthquake and its aftermath for the Associated Press, noted in a 2015 article in Politico that “the hardest thing about evaluating the Clintons’ work in Haiti is that there is so much of it. There’s the Clinton Foundation, which has directed $36 million to Haiti since 2010, but also the $55 million spent through the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, and the $500 million in commitments made through the Clinton Global Initiative’s Haiti Action Network.” 27 These donors interacted with representatives of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In addition, as Jacob Kushner noted in a 2019 article in The Guardian, “between April 2010 and October 2011, decisions about how to rebuild Haiti were made not by Haiti’s parliament, but by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, which Bill (Clinton) co-chaired. This was supposed to be a Haitian-led body, but in December 2010, the 12 Haitian members of the committee wrote a letter declaring: ‘In reality, Haitian members of the board have one role: to endorse the decisions made by the director and executive committee,’ which included donors and other Clinton allies.” 28

As Jonathan Katz notes, the Clintons’ influence elevated nonprofits they favored in Haiti.  He cites the example of the J/P Haitian Relief Organization, founded by actor Sean Penn.  Penn, according to Katz, forged “a friendship with Bill Clinton—who in turn used his foundation and his own celebrity to help turn J/P HRO into one of the most powerful NGOs in Haiti.” 29 The J/P Haitian Relief Organization received $1.3 million from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund in 2012, the fourth largest grant made by the fund in that year.

“Today no one really knows how much money was spent ‘rebuilding’ Haiti,” Katz noted. 30  Nor is it clear how much money pledged for Haiti was spent in that nation.  A 2012 New York Times investigation found that donors would often say aid was “disbursed” for Haiti, but “‘disbursed’ does not necessarily mean spent. Sometimes, it simply means the money has been shifted from one bank account to another as projects have gotten bogged down.” The Times found that half the aid “disbursed” to build housing in Haiti was in bank accounts and had not been spent on building homes. 31

There is also some evidence that money spent by the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund in Haiti was not spent wisely. The fund invested $2 million to build the Royal Oasis Hotel.  The Washington Post found in 2015 that the hotel listed rooms for $200 a night that had “a sleek suite with hardwood floors” and that the hotel’s shops sold “$150 designer purses and $120 men’s dress shirts.” Post reporters found the hotel nearly empty in their visit, but a spokeswoman for Occidental Hotels said the hotel would “mature in the long run.” 32

“Haitians increasingly complain that the Clintons’ most ambitious plans are disconnected from the realities of most people in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” the Post reported. 33

References

  1. [1] “Remarks on Earthquake Relief in Haiti,” Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, January 16, 2010.
  2. [1] “Remarks on Earthquake Relief in Haiti,” Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, January 16, 2010.
  3. “Remarks on Earthquake Relief in Haiti,” Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, January 16, 2010.
  4. Helene Cooper, “Obama Lists Who Will Get Prize Money From Fund,” New York Times, March 12, 2010.  All of President Obama’s Nobel Prize money went to charities; the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund was the second-largest donation recipient from President Obama’s Nobel bequest, topped by $250,000 to Fisher House.
  5. “Stars Unite To Help Haiti in Tonight’s Telethon,” Associated Press, January 22, 2010.
  6. “Remarks Honoring the 2009 national Basketball Association Champion Los Angeles Lakers,” Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, January 25, 2010.
  7. K.C. Johnson, “Rose Runs Up Score, Assists:  32-point Game Means Big Bucks For Haitian Relief,” Chicago Tribune, January 23, 2010.
  8. Rosemary Feitelberg, “CFDA Presents Clinton With $1M Donation for Haiti,” Woman’s Wear Daily, April 15, 2010.
  9. “Letter Garners Coushatta Youth A Presidential Mention,” Shreveport Times, January 28, 2010.
  10. Yann Ranaivo, “Local Resident Spit Chin For Haiti,” Idaho State Journal, January 31, 2010.
  11. Beau Yarbrough, “ROP Program Donates to Clinton Bush Haiti Fund,’ Victorville Daily Press, February 25, 2010.
  12. Justin Moyer, “Live!  At The Gaddafis’ Place!” The Washington Post, March 6, 2011.
  13. Kriston Capps, “Salahi Dress Sold for Seven (Thousand),” NBC Washington, October 2, 2010, https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/salahi-sari-sold-for-seven-thousand/1852839/ (accessed January 1, 2021)
  14. “Strategic Giving Vs. Giving From The Gut,” Crain’s Chicago Business, August 6, 2012,
  15. Matthew Mosk, Brian Ross, and Cho Park, “How Clinton Donor Got on Sensitive Intelligence Board,” ABC News, June 10, 2016.  Anita S. Kumar, “Donor Promised to Make Clinton ‘Look Good’ If Appointed to Board,” McClatchy, June 27, 2016.
  16. 2010 Clinton Bush Haiti Fund Form 990.
  17. 2011 Clinton Bush Haiti Fund Form 990. `
  18. 2012 Clinton Bush Haiti Fund Form 990.  It is not clear which “United Nations Office” received the $2 million grant.
  19. Megan O’Matz, “Clinton Bush Haiti Fund Slow To Release Cash,” Orlando Sentinel, October 20, 2011.
  20. Megan O’Matz, “Clinton Bush Haiti Fund Slow To Release Cash.”
  21. Press release from Coca-Cola, August 18, 2010.
  22. “TechnoServe Received $2 Million Grant To Cultivate Small And Growing Businesses,” undated press release from TechnoServe, https://www.technoserve.org/news/technoserve-receives-2-million-grant-to-cultivate-small-and-growing-busines/  (accessed January 5, 2021)
  23. Daniel Trenton and Martha Mendoza, “Artisans Flourish In Post-Quake Haiti,” Los Angeles Times, December 23, 2012.
  24. Daniel Trenton and Martha Mendoza, “Artisans Flourish in Post0Quake Haiti,” Los Angeles Times, December 23, 2012.
  25. “The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund Commits Its Remaining Funds,” press release from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, December 20, 2012.
  26. 2013 Clinton Bush Haiti Fund Form 990.
  27. Jonathan M. Katz, “The King and Queen of Haiti,” Politico, May 4, 2015.
  28. Jacob Kushner, “Haiti and The Failed Promise of US Aid,” The Guardian, October 11, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/11/haiti-and-the-failed-promise-of-us-aid (accessed January 6, 2021)
  29. Jonathan M. Katz, “The King and Queen of Haiti,” Politico, May 4, 2015.
  30. Jonathan M. Katz, “The King and Queen of Haiti,” Politico, May 4, 2015.
  31. Deborah Sontag, “In Reviving Haiti, Lofty Hopes and Hard Truths,” New York Times, December 23, 2012.
  32. Kevin Sullivan and Rosalind S. Helderman, “How The Clintons’ Haiti Development Plans Succeed—And Disappoint,” Washington Post, March 20, 2015.
  33. Kevin Sullivan and Rosalind S. Helderman, “How The Clintons’ Haiti Development Plans Succeed—And Disappoint,” Washington Post, March 20, 2015.
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