As it has sought to raise huge sums of money -- $165-million to build a library complex and another $40-million for an endowment -- officials of the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation say they have tried to avoid interfering with the fund-raising efforts of large and small charitable organizations located nearby.
“We’ve tried to be very sensitive,” says Skip Rutherford, head of Mr. Clinton’s organization. “That does not mean that we have not attempted to raise money in Little Rock and Arkansas, but we’ve tried to not negatively impact the other organizations whose vast majority of funds must come from Arkansas. We’ve struck a happy medium here by not trying to dominate publicity and the fund-raising scene by holding a bunch of galas or special events. It’s all part of being a good neighbor.”
A spot check of charities in the region bears out the claim.
Says Pat Lile, president of the Arkansas Community Foundation, in Little Rock, “I wouldn’t call them totally ‘under the radar,’ but their fund-raising efforts here are very low-key, and I’ve not seen any appreciable negative effect on giving in our area at all.” She adds, “People here perceive that the library is a project that deserves a broad embracing and are really glad that donors from all over the country, as well as from outside the country, are giving to it.”
John Carman, scout executive of the Quapaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, in Little Rock, says he has seen no effect from the Clinton library. “There’s not a lot of splash and promotion of it here,” he says.
The Scout council blames a weak economy on disappointing fund-raising totals in 2001 and 2002, but Mr. Carman says he’s been pleased with its results in 2003 and so far this year. “Nobody here would attribute the problems of those two years to the fund-raising efforts for the library,” he says.
Mr. Carman says he knows of well-off local donors who have made sizeable gifts to the Clinton cause “who are people who can afford to continue giving to other charities here that they support, in addition to the library, because they have that kind of wealth.”
John Nazzarro, president of the United Way of Pulaski County, in North Little Rock, has also seen “no material effect” from the Clinton fund-raising effort on his organization or other local charities.
If anything, he adds, the drive to build the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park may have caused local residents to think about charitable giving and inspire them to contribute to local organizations that they might not otherwise have supported. “When people are talking about giving to anything,” says Mr. Nazzarro, “it tends to promote giving to everything.”