Author: Barry Bowen
In All the President’s Men, the famous movie about Watergate, informant Deep Throat tells Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, “Follow the money.” This pithy slogan quickly became the motto for investigative reporters looking into fraud.
With so many accusations being leveled at Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charity, The Clinton Foundation, it is time to do some investigating of our own. Does the foundation exaggerate its charity work? Let’s take a look.
By law the Clinton Foundation is required to file the Form 990 annually with the IRS. These financial disclosure documents are a matter of public record and may be downloaded from The Foundation Center’s 990 Finder.
On Twitter, the Clinton charity brags, “Fact: 87% of our spending goes directly to programs that improve people’s lives around the world.”
This claim is false. The actual amount is 79% for 2014 and 81% in 2013. We get these figures by dividing total program services expenses by total functional expenses.
2014:
Total Functional Expenses: $91,281,145
Total Program Services Expenses: $72,552,187
2013:
Total Functional Expenses: $84,684,494
Total Program Services Expenses: $68,308,811
In this graphic the Clinton Foundation claims that 8.6% percent of its spending in 2014 was for management and general expenses. Another misleading statistic. Instead 13% of total functional expenses were for management and general expenses. ($12,010,365)
On a final note, some Americans might be surprised to learn the Clinton Foundation is generating huge profits. Line 19 on page one of the Form 990 shows “revenue minus expenses”.
2014 profit: $86,523,467
2013 profit: $63,158,275
What is the Clinton Foundation going to do with all that excess revenue?
Author: Barry Bowen
