ANNUAL REPORT 2024-2025
Our Programs
Scroll to explore the impact we’re making across our core programs around the world.
EDUCATION
Expanding Opportunities for Students
Every student deserves the chance to get a high-quality education, no matter where they live or how much their family earns. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Education program focuses on expanding access to educational opportunities, from kindergarten through high school, to college and career training, and beyond.
Students at Richmond’s Cardinal Elementary School participated in an extended school-year program that we supported as part of efforts to address pandemic-related learning loss.
Every student deserves the chance to get a high-quality education, no matter where they live or how much their family earns. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Education program focuses on expanding access to educational opportunities, from kindergarten through high school, to college and career training, and beyond.
Investing in High-Quality K-12 Education
Launched in 2021, our program to expand access to high-quality public charter schools in key metro areas across the United States has now reached a total of 143,000 new seats committed toward our 150,000-seat goal by 2026.
Through our charter schools initiative, we have supported Forte Preparatory Academy Charter School in New York City.
Summer Boost students learned math and reading skills at Central Queens Academy Charter School in New York City, one of many charter schools across the city where we supported summer education.
Building on this work, we created a summer school program that has grown to provide learning opportunities for 35,000 students at more than 450 charter schools in seven U.S. cities in 2024. These initiatives are ensuring that more students have opportunities to attend high-performing schools that provide them with the skills they need for future success.
143,000
143,000new U.S. charter school seats invested in since 2021
35,000
35,000summer education students supported in 2024
Boosting Summer Learning
Math
English
Independent program assessments found a 20 percentage point increase in math proficiency and 18 percentage point increase in English proficiency
Creating New Charter Seats
Our charter schools initiative works in 11 key regions across the United States to expand access for students.
From High School Learning to High-Demand Careers
High school students at Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers in Boston, MA – one of 10 healthcare-focused high schools we have created nationwide – gained hands-on experience through a CPR training.
As part of our longstanding efforts to strengthen U.S. career and technical education, we unveiled a major U.S. initiative in January 2024 to create 10 high schools that prepare students for in-demand, well-paying jobs in the healthcare industry. The first four schools opened in the fall of 2024, providing specialized healthcare classes and work-based learning alongside traditional academic subjects. Ultimately, the 10 schools will serve nearly 6,000 students every year.
In addition, we continue to support promising career and technical education programs across the United States, aiming to prepare students for in-demand jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree.
SPOTLIGHT
Hands-on experiential learning is part of the training students receive as they prepare for careers in the healthcare field.
Dallas, TX
We partnered with Uplift Education and Baylor Scott & White Health to launch Uplift Heights Healthcare Institute, which began serving an initial class of 160 students in fall 2024. The school offers specialized healthcare classes as well as hands-on experiential learning, with the opportunity to explore four pathways in the healthcare field: nursing, biomedical science, diagnostic and therapeutic services, and non-clinical administration. At full capacity, it will serve 600 students.
Charlotte, NC
As part of a collaboration between Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Atrium Health, and Carolinas College of Health Sciences, Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences offers students the opportunity to graduate with a Certified Nursing Certificate – and go on to earn an associate degree the following year. The school, which began serving 110 students in fall 2024 and will grow to serve 400 students at full capacity, offers classes across four healthcare pathways: nursing, healthcare simulation, radiology, and neurodiagnostics.
Broadening Access to Top Colleges
We are working to expand access to higher education through programs that help high-achieving students from lower-income backgrounds enroll in top U.S. colleges and universities they are qualified to attend. Since 2015, our American Talent Initiative coalition of 138 top colleges and universities has collectively enrolled record-breaking numbers of low- and middle-income students, while our CollegePoint program has provided free college advising to over 70,000 students.
Through our CollegePoint program, we trained mentors at Princeton University to help prospective students navigate the college application process.
Student-Centered University Partnerships
As part of our work to expand college access, Bloomberg Philanthropies also works with select universities on other strategic partnerships and support for students, including:
Johns Hopkins University
As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ longstanding commitment to Mike Bloomberg’s alma mater, we support wrap-around services for students who are the first in their families to attend college or from lower-income families. In 2018, we announced a historic commitment to make undergraduate admissions need-blind, and in July 2024, we gave an additional $1 billion to provide financial aid for graduate students across the university, including funding to make the medical school tuition-free for the majority of students.
At the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, which our support has made tuition-free for the majority of students, the latest class of medical students took part in lab trainings from world-class professors. Credit: Will Kirk/Johns Hopkins University
Princeton University
The university’s Emma Bloomberg Center for Access & Opportunity provides mentorship, support, and programming for lower-income and first-generation students. In 2024, the center served more than 500 students.
New York University
The Georgina & Charlotte Bloomberg Public Service Fellowship offers full-tuition scholarships for master’s degree students interested in public service. To date, the program has supported 45 fellows.
Kessler Scholars Collaborative
First launched by the Fred and Judy Wilpon Family Foundation at the University of Michigan, the effort provides dedicated support services for first-generation, lower-income students – and has expanded from six to 16 colleges with our support.
Arts
Strengthening Communities Through the Arts
The arts have the power to inspire creativity, spark collaboration, and improve people’s lives. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Arts program invests in artists, arts organizations, and audience experiences to strengthen the creative landscape and quality of life in cities around the world.
For the 20th anniversary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude‘s ``The Gates`` in Central Park, Bloomberg Connects created an augmented reality experience that brought the original installation to new, virtual life. Credit: Joe Pugliese
The arts have the power to inspire creativity, spark collaboration, and improve people’s lives. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Arts program invests in artists, arts organizations, and audience experiences to strengthen the creative landscape and quality of life in cities around the world.
Partnering with Global Cultural Institutions
As one of the world’s largest philanthropic funders of the arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies partners with outstanding cultural institutions to support their work, helps put on groundbreaking exhibitions, and shares programming with wider audiences.
Our support spans more than 700 cultural institutions globally, in addition to partnerships with countless artists and major art gatherings.
CONGREGATION by Es Devlin
Olafur Eliasson: OPEN. Credit: Courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
Amy Sherald: American Sublime. Credit: Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art/Matthew Carasella
Archipelagic Void by Minsuk Cho. Credit: Iwan Baan, Courtesy of Serpentine
Sharing Digital Guides to Cultural Organizations
At the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan, a visitor used Bloomberg Connects to explore Adrián Villar Rojas’ Untitled 22 (From the Series The End of Imagination).
As part of our work to help cultural organizations harness the power of technology to engage audiences, we launched the free Bloomberg Connects app in 2019.
Bloomberg Connects now offers digital guides and in-depth, curated content from more than 1,000 museums, historical sites, botanical gardens, and other cultural institutions in more than 300 cities around the world – making it easy to explore their offerings from mobile devices, anytime, anywhere, in 53 languages.
1,000+
1,000+cultural institutions with free guides on Bloomberg Connects
5M+
5M+total users
53
53languages available
Strengthening the Arts Through Technology
At SFJAZZ, the organization used new mobile recording equipment developed with our support to better capture and share a live performance online.
Bringing together our support for the arts and belief in the value of technology, we launched the Digital Accelerator Program in 2021 to address arts organizations’ need for stronger digital infrastructure.
The program helps cultural organizations strengthen their technology and management practices to improve operations, drive revenue, increase fundraising, engage broader audiences, and deliver dynamic programming. In 2024, we further expanded the program, bringing the total number of organizations we have served to nearly 350.
SPOTLIGHT
SFJAZZ, San Francisco, CA
With our support, the organization created a new mobile content studio to expand production and distribution while increasing on-demand viewership through website upgrades.
Bush Theatre, London, UK
By redesigning its website to improve online ticketing, the theater increased online sales by 133% and cut processing time by 40%.
Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, GA
The center launched a new search tool to increase access to their archival databases, which increased unique monthly visitors thirteen-fold and raised an additional $460,000.
Sparking Collaboration Through Public Art
Baltimore lit up historic bell towers with 15-foot sculptures through Zoë Charlton’s Third Watch. Credit: Side A Photography
Our Public Art Challenge leverages the power of public art to bring people together and draw attention to critical issues.
The U.S.-based competition builds partnerships between mayors, artists, and community members to develop innovative public art projects that shine a light on civic challenges and work to combat them. Previous rounds of the competition have focused on food insecurity, waste, drought, and more. The latest round is working with eight winning cities to implement a wide range of extraordinary installations.
Merging Public Art and Street Safety
Juárez, Mexico, completed one of the 90 projects we have supported to use arts-driven roadway redesigns to improve street safety, revitalize public spaces, and engage communities. The city’s transformation of its historic center resulted in a 59% increase in pedestrian visits, a 43% decrease in vehicle speeds, and a 100% increase in drivers yielding to pedestrians.
Expanding Opportunities in the Arts
Through the Bloomberg Arts Internship, we have provided meaningful, paid internships for more than 2,250 public school students at over 250 cultural organizations in seven cities: Baltimore, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and expanded to Detroit and New Orleans for the first time in 2024.
In August 2024, interns presented on their work at cultural institutions in New York City.
Environment
Creating a More Sustainable World
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Environment program tackles leading causes behind the climate crisis, aiming to seize the opportunity it presents to revitalize the environment, improve health, spur innovation, and create stronger, more sustainable local economies.
A partner in Jakarta tested vehicle emissions as part of our work with cities to reduce air pollution from major sources.
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Environment program tackles leading causes behind the climate crisis, aiming to seize the opportunity it presents to revitalize the environment, improve health, spur innovation, and create stronger, more sustainable local economies.
Strengthening Ocean Protections
The ocean is a source of food and livelihoods for over three billion people – and as the world’s largest carbon sink, it is crucial in the fight against climate change.
To address threats to the ocean, we focus on implementing data-driven solutions, convening community leaders and organizations, and supporting partners to advocate for policy change. In 2024, we unveiled the 30×30 Progress Tracker, a user-friendly public digital platform that monitors and reports on global progress to protect the ocean.
Our work in Fiji is helping to protect coral reefs and other ecosystems. Credit: Emily Darling/WCS
Maintaining U.S. Progress on Climate Change
Mike introduced UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the American Museum of Natural History in June 2024.
In January 2025, when the United States announced plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time, Bloomberg Philanthropies again stepped up. As we did in 2017, we will follow through on U.S. commitments to report climate progress to the United Nations, while also filling the gap in funding created by the U.S. withdrawal.
“From 2017 to 2020, during a period of federal inaction, cities, states, businesses, and the public rose to the challenge of upholding our nation’s commitments − and now, we are ready to do it again.”
– Mike Bloomberg
Leading Global City Networks on Climate Change
Cities are on the frontlines of today’s most pressing challenges – from pollution to energy access.
Bloomberg Philanthropies is closely involved in global city networks dedicated to accelerating local climate action, such as the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy. These networks elevate city leadership, bring leaders together to share strategies, and measure progress toward key climate goals. We also continue to support America Is All In, a coalition of more than 5,000 U.S. cities, states, businesses, universities, and tribes committed to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Leaders involved in C40, including Mayor Aki-Sawyerr of Freetown, Mayor Paes of Rio de Janeiro, and Mayor Hidalgo of Paris, met with President Lula of Brazil and President Boric of Chile at the Urban 20 Summit, which we supported. Credit: Ricardo Stuckert/PR
Advancing Climate Finance
At the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in September 2024, Mike and other leaders addressed the importance of climate finance.
Historic levels of private investment are required to build a stronger, more sustainable future, unlock the full potential for growth in emerging markets and developing economies, and allow for industry and nature to be part of the solution. While this global transition represents a major economic opportunity, investment is not increasing as fast as it should.
Through our work, we are helping to bridge the gap between opportunity and investment – supporting initiatives that provide businesses and investors with critical data to understand risks and opportunities, bringing together financial firms who recognize the opportunities created by the transition, and fostering public-private partnerships that overcome barriers to investment.
Accelerating the Energy Transition
Across the United States, the transition to clean energy represents an opportunity to create jobs, improve public health, and stave off the worst threats of climate change. In 2019, we launched the Beyond Carbon campaign to tackle the issue, building on work we have supported since 2011 that has retired more than 73 percent of U.S. coal plants.
We have now helped to halt nearly a quarter of proposed methane gas capacity and ensured that 19 states and two territories have clean energy policies, up from just two in 2019. In 2024, U.S. wind and solar generated more power than coal for the first time, and the entire New England region went coal-free after the final two plants committed to closing. The campaign’s success also inspired the expansion of our work globally – which has helped retire 59 percent of Europe’s coal plants, among other progress.
U.S. Power Generation: Driving Down Coal and Increasing Clean Energy
73%
73%U.S. coal plants retired since 2010
21
21U.S. states and territories with clean energy policies, up from 2 in 2019
59%
59%of Europe’s coal plants retired since 2017
Stopping U.S. Petrochemicals
As part of our work to retire U.S. coal plants, our partners secured the retirement of the Chambers Cogeneration Plant in Carney’s Point, NJ, which is now transitioning to a clean energy storage facility.
Petrochemical facilities, which produce fossil fuel-based plastics, fertilizers, fabrics, and other consumer products, generate a growing share of U.S. emissions and toxic air pollution.
In 2022, we launched the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign with local partners to stop the industry’s planned expansion, which would have devastating consequences for both public health and the environment. The effort has now stopped the construction of 26 of the roughly 130 proposed petrochemical facilities nationwide, averting annual emissions equivalent to 18 coal plants as well as 33,500 tons of toxic air pollutants.
Tackling Global Methane Emissions
As part of our work to tackle methane emissions, a major driver of climate change, we supported the launch of a methane-detecting satellite in 2024 that is bringing new data and transparency to the challenge. In just its first month in operation, the satellite detected more than 1,000 methane and carbon dioxide plumes like this one in Texas’ Permian Basin – which spurred a pipeline facility to fix the source.
Credit: Carbon Mapper and Planet Labs
SPOTLIGHT
Helping Cities Breathe Easy
Paris, France
Paris is one of 14 cities we have partnered with to address air pollution. Our support has allowed the city to strengthen its air quality monitoring – including deploying 138 air quality sensors at 44 schools. This new data drove the city to implement air quality improvements for 300 school streets and introduce ambitious traffic restrictions on polluting vehicles, which cut nitrogen oxide pollution by more than 23% since 2019. In 2024, the city hosted other partner cities in our clean air work to further spread effective solutions.
Public Health
Ensuring Safer, Longer, Healthier Lives
Advances in public health have an extraordinary track record of saving and improving lives – and the potential to save and improve millions more. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Public Health program focuses on the world’s leading causes of death from noncommunicable diseases and injuries, which continue to be overlooked and underfunded.
Through an initiative we launched, our partners are expanding efforts to test and monitor lead exposure among residents, identify and regulate key sources of lead, and clean up contaminated sites. Credit: Pure Earth
Advances in public health have an extraordinary track record of saving and improving lives – and the potential to save and improve millions more. Mike Bloomberg’s commitment to public health spans decades and today Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Public Health program focuses on the world’s leading causes of death from noncommunicable diseases and injuries.
Continuing to Save Lives from Global Tobacco Use
Tobacco use is one of the world’s leading causes of death and an enormous threat to public health globally.
Since 2007, Bloomberg Philanthropies has led global efforts to reduce tobacco use. We helped to develop a package of proven policies that can save lives from tobacco use, such as banning smoking in public places, raising taxes on tobacco products, and prohibiting tobacco advertising, and we support partners to advocate for more of these policies at the local and national government levels.
Driving Down Global Cigarette Sales
Since 2007, our partners have supported the passage of laws in 94 countries to curb the global use of tobacco. In 2024, 649 billion fewer cigarettes were sold worldwide than in 2007.
25%
25%decline in global smoking rates since 2007
72%
72%decline in U.S. teen e-cigarette use since 2019
35.2M
35.2Mlives saved from tobacco use globally
Safer Roads Save Lives
Recife, Brazil, redesigned 65 dangerous intersections in low-income neighborhoods with our support, making them safer for all road users in the community. Credit: Wagner Barbosa (before), Samuel Caetano (after)
Road crashes are the leading cause of death for young people ages five to 29.
Since 2007, we have worked with partners to support governments in strengthening their road safety laws and implementing proven interventions that protect everyone on the road.
To date, we have backed successful efforts to strengthen 185 national and subnational laws, covering over four billion people. We have also supported 114 media campaigns, trained over 70,000 traffic enforcement agents, and helped to redesign more than 2,300 high-risk intersections. In total, this work has saved an estimated 900,000 lives.
Better Data, Better Health Policies
Since 2015, we have tackled a global challenge for public health data: Roughly half of all deaths go unrecorded and one-quarter of births are unregistered annually, leaving governments without essential information they need to develop and refine policies that improve public health.
Our Data for Health initiative partners with 25 low- and middle-income countries to improve the collection and use of data on deaths, births, and other health factors. In total, this work has collected or strengthened over 20 million death records and nearly 17 million birth records.
In Colombia, our initiative has helped digitize and modernize paper-based health records. Credit: Credit: Juan Arredondo for The New York Times Magazine
Healthier Diets, Healthier People
With our support, clinics in Nigeria are providing care to address high blood pressure by diagnosing hypertension and other medical conditions, offering medication, and educating patients about unhealthy diets. Credit: Resolve to Save Lives
Unhealthy diets contribute to the deaths of roughly seven million people every year. Since 2012, we have supported our partners’ efforts to implement, evaluate, and spread policies that tackle the challenge, such as restrictions on marketing unhealthy foods, warning labels on packaging, taxes on unhealthy foods and beverages, and more.
In total, our partners have supported the passage of 49 policies across 11 countries, primarily in the Americas. We also partner with Resolve to Save Lives on an initiative to save lives from cardiovascular disease, which is closely linked to unhealthy diets and other risk factors.
Preventing Drowning Globally
Drowning is a preventable cause of death, yet it kills more than 300,000 people each year. Our drowning prevention efforts focus on countries with a high burden of drowning deaths, where we collect data, implement solutions, and call on governments to scale effective interventions.
We have piloted data-driven solutions in both Bangladesh and Vietnam – community childcare sites and children’s survival swimming lessons, respectively – that inspired the national government to expand their reach.
In 2024, we announced a reinvestment in our global drowning prevention work and launched new efforts in 10 U.S. states with high numbers of drowning deaths.
With our support, second graders in New York City participated in basic swim lessons at a local YMCA.
Preventing Lead Poisoning
In five states across India, we are supporting efforts to measure baseline levels of lead in blood among children and pregnant women. Credit: Vital Strategies
In 2025, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a new initiative to address an enormous and often overlooked public health challenge: lead poisoning. Our initiative will support partners to advocate for strong government interventions that limit lead exposure through regulations on paint, spices, lead-acid batteries, and other sources; identify and clean up major sources of lead contamination, such as unsafe battery recycling locations; and expand testing for lead levels to provide governments with accurate information to tailor their policies and programs.
Restoring and Improving Vision
As many as one billion people worldwide live with untreated vision impairment, threatening learning among children and livelihoods among adults, alongside many other quality-of-life challenges. In 2025, we kicked off a new initiative to address these challenges and treat people with poor vision. Working with partners in countries where the issues are especially prevalent, our initiative will fund cataract surgeries to restore patients’ vision, conduct vision screenings, and distribute eyeglasses for millions of people in need.
We are supporting partners in Nigeria to conduct vision screenings and distribute eyeglasses to people with poor vision – one of six countries where we are funding this work. Credit: Adebowale Alfred Adekunle/Vision Spring
Prioritizing Maternal Health
In Tanzania, upgraded healthcare facilities have helped to improve maternal and infant health outcomes. Credit: Johns Hopkins University
In 2025, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched new efforts to improve maternal health across Sub-Saharan Africa, building on a successful model we first supported in Tanzania in 2006.
Our latest investment expands our work in Tanzania, while launching similar efforts to provide high-quality obstetric and newborn care in Malawi and Nigeria and addressing additional maternal health needs across Sub-Saharan Africa. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we are also funding life-changing surgeries for women suffering from obstetric fistulas.
Combating the U.S. Overdose Epidemic
In 2018, as data made clear that drug overdose deaths were driving unprecedented declines in U.S. life expectancy, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched an effort to respond. Our work supports partners to implement evidence-based overdose prevention strategies, like increasing access to medications to treat opioid use disorder and reverse overdoses. In 2024, the seven states where we focus our efforts saw a 31-percent average decline in overdose deaths, outpacing a 27-percent decline nationally.
In cities like Paterson, New Jersey, we have helped improve access to life-saving drugs like naloxone.
Government Innovation
Building Effective City Halls
More people now live in the world’s cities than ever before, putting cities and their leaders on the frontlines of addressing global challenges. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Government Innovation program focuses on bolstering local governments’ abilities and ambitions by strengthening their capacity to harness data, solve problems, and better serve residents.
Guadalajara won our Mayors Challenge for a project to prevent corruption and improve efficiency by digitizing business permits and construction licenses – and we are now spreading the idea to other cities globally. Credit: Getty Images
More people now live in the world’s cities than ever before, putting cities and their leaders on the frontlines of addressing global challenges. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Government Innovation program focuses on bolstering local governments’ abilities and ambitions by strengthening their capacity to harness data, solve problems, and better serve residents.
Replicating Proven Solutions Across Cities
While cities often face many of the same challenges, it can be difficult for them to identify, evaluate, and replicate effective policy solutions developed elsewhere. For more than a decade, Bloomberg Philanthropies has led efforts to make idea sharing and replication between cities a standard practice.
At Bloomberg CityLab 2024 in Mexico City, we welcomed Mayor Norton of Rochester, MN, Mayor Sayegh of Paterson, NJ, and Mayor Lagnada of Butuan City, Philippines, to discuss their cities’ Mayors Challenge projects.
SPOTLIGHT
Global Mayors Challenge
Bogotá, Colombia
Provided support services for women to ease the burden of unpaid caregiving.
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Restored 2,500 acres of tree coverage with monetary incentives for tree-planting.
Rourkela, India
Provided women food vendors with solar-powered cold storage that increased their income by 62%.
Phoenix, AZ, USA
Helped over 350 residents get jobs through a mobile career van for job seekers without internet access.
Strengthening City Leadership
In July 2024, Mike spoke to the eighth class of mayors in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.
City leaders are under pressure to deliver solutions to increasingly complex problems – but unlike the private sector, they have not traditionally had access to leadership development opportunities.
Recognizing this unmet need, we brought together Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School to launch an executive education program, serving 314 mayors and 554 of their senior staff since 2017. We also launched sibling programs in Israel and Africa – and are launching a new European city leadership initiative with the London School of Economics and the Hertie School in Berlin in the fall of 2025.
314
314mayors and 554 senior staff provided with executive leadership training
3
3sibling programs launched to train city leaders in Israel, Africa, and Europe
Using Data to Improve Residents’ Lives
In October 2024 in Mexico City, we brought together more than 700 mayors, policymakers, and urban experts for our eleventh annual Bloomberg CityLab summit, where Mike described the challenges and opportunities that cities are grappling with today.
Over the course of a decade, Bloomberg Philanthropies has built a global movement to embed data at the heart of how cities identify challenges and solutions, make decisions, evaluate progress, and look ahead. Building on this foundation, we lead a program with Johns Hopkins University called the City Data Alliance, which has provided 65 cities with in-depth coaching, data skills training, and technical assistance to strengthen city-wide data use.
SPOTLIGHT
Baltimore, MD
Created a data-driven task force that helped the city address 19,000 complaints about potholes, graffiti, and unpaved roads in less than two months.
Recife, Brazil
Launched a dashboard that is helping 800,000 residents access medications by providing real-time updates on their availability, filling a need for people managing chronic conditions.
Las Condes, Chile
Created an AI-powered platform to better deploy safety patrols and inspections, reducing home burglaries and commercial theft by 22% and physical assaults by 60%.
Montevideo, Uruguay
Responded to a water shortage by using data to understand where vulnerable residents live and roll out water distribution sites that delivered nearly 83,000 gallons of water.
In June 2024, we brought together 23 mayors in the third class of our City Data Alliance for coaching on best practices in data use at the George Peabody Library at Johns Hopkins University.
A Fresh Approach to Solving Challenges
To help cities better understand and solve increasingly complex challenges, Bloomberg Philanthropies continues to foster creative problem-solving and innovation in cities. We support small teams of experts in data analysis, design, and project management – known as innovation teams, or “i-teams” – in city halls to help mayors tackle their biggest priorities and drive transformational change. To date, we have supported i-teams in 86 cities across nine countries. In 2025, we will launch i-teams in eight U.S. cities and up to 20 European cities.
SPOTLIGHT
Bogotá, Colombia
The Bogotá i-team took on the city’s water crisis, adapting an AI chatbot the team had helped create to share live updates with residents. They also redesigned a water utility bill to include behavior nudges to reduce consumption, which has reached an estimated 2.4 million households.
Reykjavík, Iceland
To cut down wait times for students to access behavioral support services, the Reykjavík i-team embedded resources in every school and developed a shared data model to align everyone supporting each child. As a result, the quality of support has gone up and wait times have fallen by 75%.
Helping Secure U.S. Infrastructure Support
After the United States rolled out historic federal infrastructure funding, we recognized that few small and mid-sized cities and towns had the capacity to navigate the competitive grant application process. To meet this need, Bloomberg Philanthropies worked with partners to launch the Local Infrastructure Hub, which provides webinars and in-depth grant-writing bootcamps to help identify funding opportunities, craft strong applications, and secure support.
To date, the Local Infrastructure Hub has served more than 2,400 localities, the vast majority of which have fewer than 50,000 residents. They have won more than $4.6 billion in funding for infrastructure projects.
Bloomberg Associates
Partnering on Cities’ Priorities
Founded in 2014, Bloomberg Associates is a philanthropic consultancy that advises cities around the world. Since its inception, our Bloomberg Associates team has worked with 24 client cities on a wide array of projects to improve residents’ quality of life. The team takes a strategic, collaborative, and results-oriented approach to make cities stronger, safer, and more efficient.
Over seven years of engagement with Detroit, Bloomberg Associates led a wide range of projects, including helping create a new community gathering space at Spirit Plaza adjacent to City Hall. Credit: Downtown Detroit Partnership
Founded in 2014, Bloomberg Associates is a philanthropic consultancy that advises cities around the world. Since its inception, our Bloomberg Associates team has worked with 24 client cities on a wide array of projects to improve residents’ quality of life. The team takes a strategic, collaborative, and results-oriented approach to make cities stronger, safer, and more efficient.
Engaging with Cities to Improve Residents’ Lives
For over a decade, Bloomberg Associates has worked on more than 1,000 projects across 24 client cities to improve residents’ lives. Our expertise spans marketing and tourism, economic development, urban planning, social services, transportation, sustainability, cultural assets management, media and digital strategies, municipal integrity, communications, and cybersecurity and technology.
Client City Spotlights
London students received mentoring support through mock interviews and other career preparations.
London, United Kingdom
Bloomberg Associates has long worked with London to address a series of priorities, including helping to establish London’s first Office of Technology & Innovation, supporting the city’s efforts to provide 100,000 disadvantaged young Londoners with access to high-quality mentors, and collaborating on a program to help businesses cut energy costs and emissions.
Westminster, United Kingdom
Bloomberg Associates has partnered closely with the Westminster City Council to create an action plan to revitalize a key retail corridor on Harrow Road, expanding support for local small business owners. We also helped launch a network of primary, nursery, and special schools focused on addressing common challenges, such as low enrollment and budget issues.
With Bloomberg Associates’ support, Westminster is helping a network of schools to address shared challenges and better serve students.
Bloomberg Associates’ support helped Newark win federal funding for a new tree-planting campaign.
Newark, New Jersey
Bloomberg Associates has worked with Newark on a wide range of projects. That includes helping to develop the city’s first municipal grant program for the arts, which has awarded over 500 grants totaling more than $3 million, designing and launching a shared bike and e-scooter program that has now been permanently adopted, crafting a plan to help the city revitalize its downtown with low-to-no-cost financial assistance for businesses, and opening innovative housing communities that move residents off the streets and toward permanent homes.
Phoenix, Arizona
To tackle extreme heat, Bloomberg Associates helped Phoenix develop a master plan that uses data and 3D modeling to pinpoint places where shade is needed most – guiding efforts to plant 27,000 trees and create 500 shade structures. We also advised an effort to transform an empty retail building into a major workforce training center and helped to identify and deactivate unused city phone lines, saving nearly $2 million annually.
Mayor Kate Gallego of Phoenix joined community members for the launch of a new shaded playground, part of efforts supported by Bloomberg Associates to create more places with shade for residents.
Tampa, Florida
We have guided the creation of a public-facing dashboard with real-time economic data on Tampa and its industries – increasing transparency and providing local residents and businesses with useful information at no cost. Now, a snapshot of Tampa’s evolving and growing economy is available at the click of a button. We have also partnered on the city’s effort to streamline regulations and improve urban planning.
Milan, Italy
In Milan, Bloomberg Associates helped the city develop its new €15 million strategy to strengthen neighborhood economies. We also supported the launch of a program designed to create safer, more walkable routes to schools, as part of the city’s goal to ensure that all residents live within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of essential daily services.
Bratislava, Slovakia
With Bloomberg Associates’ support, Bratislava broke ground on its most ambitious street redesign in decades, addressing long-standing safety and traffic challenges by adding protected bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and new public space. The city also approved its first-ever climate action plan, created with our support. As part of the plan, Bratislava launched a program to help businesses lower energy use, cut costs, and install renewable systems, inspired by similar work in London.
Bloomberg Associates helped to organize Bratislava’s second annual Mulchfest, a community event that recycled yard waste into garden mulch and engaged residents in the city’s new climate action plan.
Lisbon, Portugal
In Lisbon, our team is focused on strengthening the city’s position as a center for innovation. We are supporting the work of its Unicorn Factory Lisboa, which attracts growing startups, and helped establish the city’s new Transparency Office, which now requires ethics training for thousands of city vendors. In 2025, Lisbon will also launch a new multi-year strategy developed with Bloomberg Associates to reduce retail vacancy and support historic small businesses, marking a key step in revitalizing the city center.
Ottawa, Canada
In Ottawa, Bloomberg Associates is working with the city to revitalize its downtown by supporting pilot projects on major streets, advancing the rehabilitation of ByWard Market Square, a major tourist attraction, and advising on transportation and public space improvements that can be implemented quickly. We are also helping to shape a workforce and business plan for the city’s planned development of a new soundstage facility.
Founder's Projects
Investing in Key Issues and Institutions
In addition to our work on public health, education, the environment, the arts, and government innovation, Bloomberg Philanthropies' Founder's Projects are unique efforts we support that fall outside of our core program areas.
In 2024, we committed $1 billion to support financial aid for graduate students at Johns Hopkins University, including making the medical school tuition-free for the majority of students. Credit: Will Kirk/Johns Hopkins University
In addition to our work on public health, education, the environment, the arts, and government innovation, Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Founder’s Projects are unique efforts we support that fall outside of our core program areas.
Rebuilding at the World Trade Center Site
Bloomberg Philanthropies supports and works closely with a series of important institutions where Mike serves as chair of the board, such as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) in Lower Manhattan, and Serpentine in London’s historic Kensington Gardens.
The Perelman Performing Arts Center glows from within during the evenings, alongside the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan.
Promoting Women’s Economic Development
At the Women’s Opportunity Center in Rwanda, which we supported in partnership with Women for Women International, women received classroom training across key vocational tracks.
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Women’s Economic Development program partners with governments, nonprofits, and the private sector to create opportunities that lead women to economic independence in Sub-Saharan Africa and around the world.
Since 2007, the program has provided women with training and education across key tracks like agriculture, hospitality, textiles, and more. To date, our investments have enrolled more than 872,000 women in programs, benefitting over 3.4 million of their children and family members. Major independent evaluations over the lifetime of the program have continued to confirm its effectiveness.
Reducing U.S. Wealth Disparities
Driven by Mike’s commitment to increasing opportunities for all, our Greenwood Initiative is a philanthropic effort that seeks to create wealth-building opportunities for those in the bottom half of the wealth distribution in the United States.
Through the Greenwood Initiative, we have given significant financial support to the country’s historically Black medical schools, funded students from a broad range of academic backgrounds to earn PhDs in STEM at Johns Hopkins, provided clearer, more accessible data to decision-makers working to address wealth disparities, and helped cities provide residents with financial planning support.
In August 2024, Mike joined the National Medical Association’s annual conference to announce our $600 million commitment to bolster the endowments of the four historically Black medical schools, alongside the schools’ leaders.
SPOTLIGHT
Historically Black Medical Schools
A key part of the Greenwood Initiative is our support for the nation’s four historically Black medical schools: Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science; Howard University College of Medicine; Meharry Medical College; and Morehouse School of Medicine.
In August 2024, we announced a $600 million commitment to bolster the endowments of all four schools. We also gave an additional $5 million to help create a new medical school at Xavier University of Louisiana. These commitments built on our $100 million gift in 2020 to reduce the burden of debt for nearly 1,000 future doctors, which drove increases in both graduation rates and the number of graduates pursuing residencies in medically underserved areas.
Supporting Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins students enjoyed a sunny day on Homewood Campus in Baltimore.
Beginning in 1964 with a $5 donation, Mike has been a longtime supporter of his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University. We continue to support endowed professorships, research, capital projects, and a wide range of scholarships.
In July 2024, we made a major new $1 billion commitment to support financial aid for graduate students across the university. The gift supports future doctors by making Johns Hopkins’ medical school tuition-free for all students from families earning less than $300,000 per year while also covering living expenses for students from families earning less than $175,000. It has also benefited other graduate students across the university, including those in the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the School of Nursing.
Partnering Across Baltimore
Beyond the Johns Hopkins campus, Bloomberg Philanthropies partners on a wide range of initiatives that aim to make Baltimore an even better place to live, learn, and work. In 2024, we supported more than 150 community-based organizations, schools, cultural institutions, and other nonprofits addressing key priorities across the city.
Many of our initiatives also support work in Baltimore, such as our Public Art Challenge, the Bloomberg Arts Internship, and our innovation teams program.
Mapping Our Impact In Baltimore
In 2024, we worked with over 150 nonprofits, schools, and cultural institutions across Baltimore.
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses
In addition to serving 660 small business owners since 2017, the program launched new services in 2024 to help them hire local talent and improve HR functions.
HeartSmiles and Urban Alliance
A year-round fellowship program provided nearly 70 youth with earn-while-you-learn programming and internships in 2024.
City Hall
The innovation team we support is focused on addressing public safety and vacant housing.
Johns Hopkins Hospital and University of Maryland Medical Center
A new pilot program will pair in-classroom instruction with on-the-job training to prepare 100 high school students for high-demand jobs in the healthcare industry.
Broadway East and CARE Neighborhoods
Two community-led projects removed 22,000 pounds of trash from the neighborhood in 2024, while other local nonprofits upgraded 2,600 homes and planted 1,200 trees across the city.
Advancing the Arts in London
In 2024, the annual Serpentine Pavilion was designed by Minsuk Cho as a series of five islands around a circular void. Credit: Iwan Baan/Courtesy of Serpentine
London is one of the world’s great cultural capitals, and Bloomberg Philanthropies is a longtime supporter of programs and partners across the city, including many of its celebrated cultural institutions. We helped to create an award-winning cultural institution, London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, which is home to an ancient temple and a remarkable collection of Roman artifacts discovered during the construction of Bloomberg L.P.’s European headquarters in the city.
In 2025, we donated the site’s entire collection of 14,000 Roman artifacts to London Museum, the largest single deposit of archaeological material the museum has ever received. A selection of 600 artifacts will remain on display at London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE.