Fast Company: This $25 million fund is supercharging clean energy projects in the developing world
May 2, 2023
As the climate crisis looms, rich countries have been pouring money into decarbonization initiatives. But countries with developing and emerging economies, home to two-thirds of the world’s population, haven’t kept pace. The problem: money, or lack of it. A new $25 million joint effort by Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg Philanthropies, known as the Climate Innovation and Development Fund, aims to change that by backing proof-of-concept clean energy projects. It’s the winner of Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award in the Impact Investing category.
Read moreForbes: The CFE Fund’s National Movement To Create A Brighter Financial Future
May 1, 2023
With the support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and others, this FEC model is now operating across 30 cities, with more than a dozen others in training right now. James Anderson, who leads the Government Innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, speaks to the program’s success. “In 2008, then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg made it a priority to open Financial Empowerment Centers across New York City – breaking down traditional barriers to access to get New Yorkers free, one-on-one financial counseling. In taking this model – and expanding it across the U.S. – we’ve seen a multiplier effect: Bloomberg Philanthropies’ work in partnership with Jonathan’s team at the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund has, just to date, spread this program to more than 30 cities and counties, helping 142,000 individuals reduce over $211 million in debt and increase household savings by $43 million.”
Read moreBoston Globe: Harvard launches Bloomberg Center for Cities to train municipal leaders
April 18, 2023
Harvard University launched the Bloomberg Center for Cities, a unit housed within the Kennedy School designed to train municipal leaders everywhere from Boston to Bristol, England. The center will link city officials across the globe with executive education and multidisciplinary research from Harvard faculty and create opportunities for graduate students contemplating careers in public service.
Read moreThe New York Times: The Lifesaving Power of … Paperwork?
March 29, 2023
Colombia Rural Vital [is] one of several initiatives begun by the nonprofits Vital Strategies and Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of a broader effort to improve birth-and-death registries around the world. By the organizations’ estimate, some two billion people do not have birth certificates, and only half of the 60 million or so deaths that occur each year are recorded in any meaningful way.
Read moreEl Pais: Five inspiring cities and their exemplary efforts to deal with the silent urban killers
March 18, 2023
Most measures to reduce consumption – the most effective being price hikes – are the responsibility of national governments, explains Kelly Henning, head of the Public Health program at Bloomberg Philanthropy. “But local authorities can implement very interesting interventions such as banning smoking in certain areas or advertising tobacco on city billboards,” she says.
Read moreTime Out New York: A beautiful new theater is opening at the World Trade Center later this year
February 28, 2023
Downtown New York is in dire need of a proper performance space and the neighborhood is finally getting one in the form of the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC), which is set to open by the World Trade Center this upcoming September. The cultural institution has been a long time coming, with talks regarding it kicking off when Michael Bloomberg, now a chairman on the project, first became mayor nearly two decades ago. Considering the scope of the new eight-story building, the timeline certainly makes sense.
Read morePolitico Pro: Bloomberg Philanthropies commits $5.2M for high school peer advisory program
February 1, 2023
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropic organization pledged $5.2 million to help develop the Department of Education and the City University of New York’s college and career peer advisory program for New York City public high school students.
Read moreRoute Fifty: A ‘Bootcamp’ to Help Smaller Cities Win Infrastructure Grants
January 8, 2023
The bootcamps are free to cities, with Bloomberg Philanthropies and a number of other foundations and philanthropic organizations providing financial support for the initiative.
Read moreCrain’s New York Business: How arts organizations got the app they needed—for free
December 20, 2022
Bloomberg Philanthropies launched an app, Bloomberg Connects, before the 2020 pandemic closures. By the time the Frick was working on the details of its Madison Avenue opening, Bloomberg Philanthropies was looking for more museum partners to give the app a try. The Frick got on the app, allowing it to create 150 audio guides, in-house. Creating previous audio guides required the help of an outside recording partner. A year and a half later, nearly a third of Frick visitors use the app. So do users at more than 100 cultural organizations around the world, including 25 in New York. This month the Metropolitan Museum of Art became among the latest to participate.
Read moreNew York Daily News: More than 1,000 NYC first graders’ college savings accounts set to grow by total of $1 million
December 13, 2022
Roughly 1,200 first graders from a Brooklyn school district with the city’s highest proportion of Black students are seeing $1,000 added to their new college savings accounts, the result of donations from Bloomberg Philanthropies and a local foundation.
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