Bill Clinton has got something figured out. But before we get to that, here’s a brainteaser: If you had an extra $3 or $4 billion to give away, what would you do?

This past week in New York, the 42nd President gathered a few of his most well-heeled acquaintances & friends for the Clinton Global Initiative, where Laura Bush, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and Hillary proposed a variety of ways for you to do something useful with your money. Not something useful for you personally, but something useful for humanity.

Ironically, that’s a big step in the gimme a (tax) break world of philanthropy. Perhaps an even bigger step is the amount of money committed at the CGI – 215 commitments totaling $7.3 billion, including a $3 billion chunk from Sir Richard Branson. This kind of money goes way beyond building a new library at the alma mater; this is Mergers & Acquisitions level!

And the names lighting up the marquee are worth noting, too. Bill & Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, and Michael Bloomberg head up an elite group—even in the billionaire’s club. Serious people making serious contributions. Clinton has made himself into a front man for this club and for good reasons that are not about politics, or even money.

He recognizes, as do the Gates and their friends, that global health and welfare initiatives cannot succeed on dollars alone. First-class talent is required for them to achieve success, and nothing attracts talent like money and names like Gates or Buffet or Clinton. These guys understand that the type of talent that succeeds in the world’s top corporations and financial institutions, turned toward solving the problems of AIDS, malaria, poverty, malnutrition, and chronic economic underdevelopment, will make all the difference in these battles.

It is these conditions that slow world economic (and human) development, and whether you feel it directly or not, they adversely affect every one of us.

So what has William Jefferson Clinton got figured out? He’s figured out that we are at a tipping point, where a relative few can influence the whole, for the better.

This leaves one final question: Lacking a $billion or two, what will I do to make a better world?