ASHLEIGH BANFIELD (HOST): In the philanthropic world the Clinton Foundation ranks about as high as can you get for a charity. GuideStar gave it a platinum rating, and CharityWatch gave it an “A.” Daniel Borochoff is the president of CharityWatch and he joins me live now from Chicago. Daniel, thanks for being with us. So, tell me how the foundation ranks compared to other nonprofits and why they get an “A.”
DANIEL BOROCHOFF: The Clinton Foundation is an excellent charity. They are able to get 88 percent of their spending to bona fide program services and their fundraising efficiency is really low. It only costs them $2 to raise $100. They’re up there with other “A” charities such as Doctors Without Borders, Salvation Army, the American Red Cross. On the other hand, CharityWatch of course has “F” rated charities such as Feed the Children that’s only able to get about 42 percent of their cash spending to bona fide program services.
BANFIELD: So, across the board, people in your business of rating these charities, who are not politically motivated, say it is stellar. And then you get this opinion piece in USA Today that was written today, saying, “yes the Clinton Foundation supports many good works, notably the fight against HIV/AIDS. No, it is not the most corrupt enterprise in political history as Donald Trump is calling it, nor is there enough evidence of potential criminality to warrant appointment of the special prosecutor Trump is seeking. But the only way to eliminate the odor surrounding the foundation is to wind it down and put it in mothballs, starting today, and transfer its important charitable work to another large American charity such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” The political casualties of what some have called a scorched earth campaign against the Clinton Foundation, who’s going be hurt the most?
BOROCHOFF: Well, the people, the millions of people that get reduced cost, reduced medical pills for like AIDS, and there's all kind of programs that they do that help millions of people, and people are going to die unless people get the help. Hopefully another group would take it on. But what I want to do for a second is, if you pull the election politics out of the equation here, it’s a really good charity. So people need to look at it apart from their political views, and it is a good charity, like the Carter Center is a good charity as well, that another former president founded. So you got to look at it from the metrics of they have good governance and accountability. They have great financial efficiency. They have valuable, important programs that help a lot of people in the world. Pull the politics out. Regardless of what you think about Hillary, the Clinton Foundation is an excellent charity.
