George and Amal Clooney

SOURCE OF WEALTH: Actor, Director, Producer & Screenwriter

FUNDING AREAS: Humanitarian Aid & Global Development, Poverty, Refugees

OVERVIEW: The Clooneys are well-known for their humanitarian work across the world, and in 2016 co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice. The Hollywood superstar George Clooney is a well-known humanitarian and political activist with strong interests in the ongoing Sudan conflict. Along with human rights and anti-corruption activist John Prendergast. George Clooney co-founded The Sentry, an investigative and policy team and a flagship initiative and strategic partner of the Clooney Foundation for Justice. George also co-founded Not On Our Watch with Oceans 11 co-stars Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt, along with the late producer Jerry Weintraub.  Not On Our Watch eventually merged into The Sentry.

Amal Clooney’s career has been dedicated to humanitarian work on an international scale from a legal perspective, both as an international human rights lawyer serving at the United Nations and as a philanthropist. She partnered with Microsoft to launch TrailWatch, an app to monitor courtrooms worldwide. The Clooneys’ work has also involved anti-poverty efforts. It is not clear how much of their wealth has been contributed to their joint causes over the years. They are very private about their philanthropy, but have funded a variety of causes as well as the work of their own foundation and some of the budget of The Sentry.

BACKGROUND: George Clooney was born in Lexington, Kentucky to a former beauty queen and a former anchorman and game show host. After his cousin got him a small part in feature film, Clooney caught the acting bug and began to work in the industry. His first major role was on the drama E.R. From that show, he broke into film, becoming a major movie star.  

Amal Clooney, previously Amal Alamuddin, is a Lebanese-British barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, specialising in international law and human rights. She studied at St Hugh's College, Oxford, where she received an Exhibition and the Shrigley Award, as well as her Bachelor’s in Jurisprudence. For her J.D., she attended the New York University School of Law where she received the Jack J. Katz Memorial Award for excellence in entertainment law. While at NYU, she worked for a semester in the office of Sonia Sotomayor, then a judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Qualified to practice law in both the United States and United Kingdom, Amal has worked at the Hague, London, NYC, and has been a professor of law for the Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute. She has lectured at several elite law schools since then, as well as tried dozens of high profile, international human rights cases that have ranged from working towards recognition for the Armenian Genocide to protecting journalists. Much of Amal’s work with the United Nations and human rights have inspired her husband to take a greater role in global humanitarian work.

ISSUES:

HUMANITARIAN AID & GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT: As a human rights and humanitarian advocate, Clooney is well known for his work to stop mass atrocities and genocide in Sudan and South Sudan, where he has traveled extensively, originally through Not On Our Watch (folded into The Sentry in February 2019). Apart from work in Darfur, the organization also operates in Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic.

In 2012, Clooney auctioned off a 2008 Telsa Roadster car (valued between $100,000-$150,000) the proceeds of which went to supporting causes in the Sudan. Clooney also launched the Satellite Sentinel Project, a partnership between Not On Our Watch, the Enough Project and DigitalGlobe, which for a number of years used satellites in Sudan and South Sudan to "to assess the human security situation, identify potential threats to civilians, and detect, deter and document war crimes and crimes against humanity." Clooney also hosted a Hope for Haiti telethon in Los Angeles.

Last decade, George Clooney and the Running Heart Foundation gave the city of Rome, Italy ten BMW scooters equipped with first aid for heart problems. In 2008, Clooney was made a UN Messenger for Peace, and in 2012, he was arrested, along with his father, while protesting outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington.

CLOONEY FOUNDATION FOR JUSTICE: In late 2016, George and Amal Clooney co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), which advocates for justice through accountability for human rights abuses around the world, with flagship initiatives The Sentry, TrialWatch and The Docket. CFJ supports a program to help out-of-school children in Lebanon, Syrian refugees among them, a chance to go back to the classroom. Partners in this program include Google.org and the Radcliffe Foundation. CFJ is also developing its TrialWatch project, an initiative focused on monitoring, reporting on, and responding to trials around the world which pose a high risk of human rights violations.” CFJ, as well, has sponsored the resettlement of Syrian and Yazidi refugees in the United States and plans to continue to offer support and assistance.

POVERTY: Clooney has sat on the board of trustees of United Way, and has supported the charity, including providing $1 million to the United Way Hurricane Katrina Response Fund. Clooney has also supported the ONE Campaign, dedicated to fighting poverty in Africa. Another organization Clooney has supported in this area is Realizing the Dream, a nonprofit founded by by Martin Luther King III, which aims to "champion freedom, justice, and equality by working to eliminate poverty, build community and foster peace through nonviolence.”

LOOKING FORWARD: With plans to grow the work of their new foundation, expect George and Amal Clooney's philanthropy to continue to ramp up. Global issues will remain a top priority in the coming years.

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