Bill Clapp

RECENT POSTS

March 5, 2012 | 1:15 PM | By

Seattle philanthropy seeks changed mindset in world murder capital

Flickr, Curtis Gregory Perry

Down with Drugs

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is in Mexico and soon will be on his way to Honduras, meeting with Central American leaders to figure out an effective strategy for combating the surging, deadly drug trade.

Many Latin American leaders say the so-called ‘War on Drugs,’ which emphasizes aggressive law enforcement, has failed and only led to increased violence. Some want to explore de-criminalizing drugs.

The Obama Administration and others remain steadfastly opposed to legalization, and appear to be planning stepped-up hemispheric drug enforcement actions.

But what if the illicit drug trade is just a symptom of the real problem?

“What’s really needed is a new mindset, about changing the culture so that the people with wealth and power in these countries invest in improving the lives of their own citizens,” said Mauricio Vivero, executive director at the Seattle International Foundation.

Puget Sound Business Journal

Mauricio Vivero

Vivero just got back from Honduras, which some have dubbed the current murder capital of the world, where he met with business leaders, politicians, philanthropists and development experts. He attended a meeting in San Pedro Sula called by the Honduran government and World Bank and featuring the Central American Leadership Initiative — an organization launched in 2007 by Bill Clapp, co-founder of the Seattle International Foundation, along with other business leaders in the region.

Biden is headed to Honduras Tuesday in part because the drug cartels are moving there, forced south due to the crackdown in Mexico.

The fight against drug cartels often resembles pushing on a balloon. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Politics, Bill Clapp, business, Central America, drugs, Mauricio Vivero, public-private partnership, Seattle International Foundation
October 31, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By

The global state of Washington state

It’s natural to become a bit self-centered when times are tough and uncertain.

Yet times are tough all over (for most, the 99 percent?, of us anyway) — and a lot tougher and uncertain for those living in the poorer parts of the world.

Today is the kick-off of an event by Global Washington aimed at counteracting our natural tendency toward self-absorption (and even good old American isolationism) — by celebrating, and fostering, the growth of Washington state’s global development community.

The global state of mind in Washington state, says Global Washington executive director Bookda Gheisar, is needed now more than ever.

“I think most people understand generally that a healthy global economy is good for all of us,” said Gheisar. “But many people think we spend something like 20 to 25 percent of the federal budget on foreign aid and development when it is really less than one percent.”

The Seattle area has a long history in international commerce, involving items such as airplanes, timber, coffee or software. Because of that, people here may understand better that assisting the poor overseas benefits us, she said. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Bill Clapp, Bookda Gheisar, economic development, foreign aid, Global Washington
July 29, 2011 | 9:51 AM | By

A(nother) guy named Bill creating Seattle’s do-gooder community

Bill Clapp

Some of the most amazing people I know on this beat — covering Seattle’s role in global health and poverty reduction — are named Bill.

There’s Bill Gates, of course, his bold and insightful (and often funny) dad Bill Gates Sr., Bill Foege, the local doc who figured out how to beat smallpox, and then there’s Bill Clapp.

I can’t really quantify this, but I don’t think many would argue with me if I said that Bill Clapp has probably done more than any other single person (named Bill or not) over the years to try to promote the culture, the emerging community, of do-gooders in Seattle and throughout this region.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the 8,000-lb gorilla on the scene today, of course. The Gates Foundation and its primary mission of global health tend to dominate the do-gooder conversation and media coverage.

But Clapp and his wife Paula were active philanthropists fighting poverty years before Bill and Melinda Gates got into the act — and well before most of us were really paying that much attention.

Flickr, papalars

This is the second of three parts in a series looking at how Seattle’s burgeoning humanitarian “sector” is coalescing, coming together. As noted in the first post, it’s a bit of a hodgepodge right now, with hundreds of groups working on their own, often unaware of others with shared interests and missions.

Moving from this creative chaos to community has long been one of Clapp’s primary aims.

“I believe in synergy, the power of collaboration,” he said.

He and Paula have launched or helped launch several initiatives aimed at creating this kind of synergy — the Seattle International Foundation (subject of my first post), Global Washington and the Initiative for Global Development.

Arguably, all of them are different means to the same end — bringing people together to figure out how to make the world a better place. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Bill Clapp, building community, Global Washington, Initiative for Global Development, Paula Clapp, Seattle International Foundation
November 15, 2010 | 5:12 PM | By

Global Washington: What do we mean by development?

On the first day of Global Washington‘s annual meeting, being held through Tuesday on the Microsoft campus, one of the primary challenges facing many participants is “development.”

The word, that is — what it means and how to know if you’re actually doing it.

“It has a lot of different meanings depending on who you’re talking to,” said Bill Clapp, a co-founder of Global Washington and one of the region’s leading philanthropists especially active in the anti-poverty strategy known as microfinance.

(Microfinance has also had a bit of an identity crisis as an anti-poverty scheme lately. Some, like the Grameen Foundation, are trying to set standards for measuring social impact.)

“What we mean by development is social development,” said Clapp. By that, he means they are focused on the kind of development that actually improves the health and welfare of people. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Agros, Bill Clapp, Bookda Gheiser, Dean Karlan, development, Global Washington, microfinance