Following is a summary of Michael Bloomberg's charitable giving, which has exceeded $8 billion dollars covering a wide range of worthy causes. He has contributed significantly to initiatives relating to gun safety and intended to save the world from climate change.
Since signing The Giving Pledge whereby the wealthy pledge to give away at
least half of their wealth, Michael Bloomberg has given away $8.2 billion. According
to a profile in Fast Company, his Bloomberg Philanthropies foundation
has five areas of focus: public health, the arts, government innovation, the
environment, and education. According to the Chronicle of
Philanthropy, Bloomberg was the third-largest philanthropic
donor in America in 2015.
Through his Bloomberg Philanthropies Foundation, he has donated and/or pledged $240 million in 2005, $60 million in 2006, $47 million in 2007, $150 million in 2009, $332 million in 2010, $311 million in 2011, and $510 million in 2015. 2011 recipients included the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; World Lung Foundation and the World Health Organization. According to The New York Times, Bloomberg was an "anonymous donor" to the Carnegie Corporation from 2001 to 2010, with gifts ranging from $5 million to $20 million each year. The Carnegie Corporation distributed these contributions to hundreds of New York City organizations ranging from the Dance Theatre of Harlem to Gilda's Club, a non-profit organization that provides support to people and families living with cancer. He continues to support the arts through his foundation. Bloomberg gave $254 million in 2009 to almost 1,400 nonprofit organizations.
Bloomberg is an environmentalist and has advocated policy to fight climate change at least since he became the mayor of New York City. At the national level, Bloomberg has consistently pushed for transitioning the United States' energy mix from fossil fuels to clean energy. In July 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $50 million to Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, allowing the campaign to expand its efforts to shut down coal-fired power plants from 15 states to 45 states. In 2015, Bloomberg announced an additional $30 million contribution to the Beyond Coal initiative, matched with another $30 million by other donors, to help secure the retirement of half of America's fleet of coal plants by 2017. In early June 2019, Bloomberg pledged $500 million to reduce climate impacts and shut remaining coal-fired power plants by 2030 via the new Beyond Carbon initiative. Bloomberg Philanthropies awarded a $6 million grant to the Environmental Defense Fund in support of strict regulations on fracking in the 14 states with the heaviest natural gas production.
In 2013, Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies launched the Risky Business initiative with former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer. The joint effort worked to convince the business community of the need for more sustainable energy and development policies, by quantifying and publicizing the economic risks the United States faces from the impact of climate change. In January 2015, Bloomberg led Bloomberg Philanthropies in a $48-million partnership with the Heising-Simons family to launch the Clean Energy Initiative. The initiative supports state-based solutions aimed at ensuring America has a clean, reliable, and affordable energy system. Since 2010, Bloomberg has taken an increasingly global role on environmental issues. From 2010 to 2013, he served as the chairman of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of the world's biggest cities working together to reduce carbon emissions. During his tenure, Bloomberg worked with President Bill Clinton to merge C40 with the Clinton Climate Initiative, with the goal of amplifying their efforts in the global fight against climate change worldwide. He serves as the president of the board of C40 Cities.
In January 2014, Bloomberg began a five-year commitment totaling $53 million through Bloomberg Philanthropies to the Vibrant Oceans Initiative. The initiative partners Bloomberg Philanthropies with Oceana, Rare, and Encourage Capital to help reform fisheries and increase sustainable populations worldwide. In 2018, Bloomberg joined Ray Dalio in announcing a commitment of $185 million towards protecting the oceans. In 2014, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed Bloomberg as his first Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change to help the United Nations work with cities to prevent climate change. In September 2014, Bloomberg convened with Ban and global leaders at the UN Climate Summit to announce definite action to fight climate change in 2015. In 2018, Ban's successor António Guterres appointed Bloomberg as UN envoy for climate action. In late 2014, Bloomberg, Ban Ki-moon, and global city networks ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), with support from UN-Habitat, launched the Compact of Mayors, a global coalition of mayors and city officials pledging to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions, enhance climate resilience, and track their progress transparently. To date, over 250 cities representing more than 300 million people worldwide and 4.1 percent of the total global population, have committed to the Compact of Mayors, which was merged with the Covenant of Mayors in June 2016. In 2015, Bloomberg and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo created the Climate Summit for Local Leaders which convened assembled hundreds of city leaders from around the world at Paris City Hall to discuss fighting climate change. The Summit concluded with the presentation of the Paris Declaration, a pledge by leaders from assembled global cities to cut carbon emissions by 3.7 gigatons annually by 2030.
During the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and chair of the Financial Stability Board, announced that Bloomberg would lead a new global task force designed to help industry and financial markets understand the growing risks of climate change. Following President Donald Trump's announcement that the U.S. government would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, Bloomberg outlined a coalition of cities, states, universities and businesses that had come together to honor America's commitment under the agreement through 'America's Pledge.' Bloomberg offered up to $15 million to the UNFCCC, the UN body that assists countries with climate change efforts. About a month later, Bloomberg and California Governor Jerry Brown announced that the America's Pledge coalition would work to "quantify the actions taken by U.S. states, cities and business to drive down greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement." In announcing the initiative, Bloomberg said "the American government may have pulled out of the Paris agreement, but American society remains committed to it." Two think tanks, World Resource Institute and the Rocky Mountain Institute, will work with America's Pledge to analyze the work cities, states and businesses do to meet the U.S. commitment to the Paris agreement. In May 2019, Bloomberg announced a 2020 Midwestern Collegiate Climate Summit in Washington University in St. Louis with the aim to bring together leaders from Midwestern universities, local government and the private sector to reduce climate impacts in the region.
As of 2019, Bloomberg has given more than $3.3 billion to Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater, making him "the most generous living donor to any education institution in the United States." His first contribution, in 1965, had been $5. He made his first $1 million commitment to JHU in 1984, and subsequently became the first individual to exceed $1 billion in lifetime donations to a single U.S. institution of higher education. Bloomberg's contributions to Johns Hopkins "fueled major improvements in the university's reputation and rankings, its competitiveness for faculty and students, and the appearance of its campus," and included construction of a children's hospital (the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center Building, named after Bloomberg's mother); a physics building, a school of public health (the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health), libraries, and biomedical research facilities, including the Institute for Cell Engineering, a stem-cell research institute within the School of Medicine, and the Malaria Research Institute within the School of Public Health.
In 2013, Bloomberg committed $350 million to Johns Hopkins, five-sevenths of which were allocated to the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships, endowing 50 Bloomberg Distinguished Professors (BDPs) whose interdisciplinary expertise crosses traditional academic disciplines. In 2016, on the School of Public Health's centennial, Bloomberg Philanthropies contributed $300 million to establish the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. Bloomberg also funded the launch of the Bloomberg–Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy within the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in East Baltimore, with a $50 million gift; an additional $50 million was given by philanthropist Sidney Kimmel, and $25 million by other donors. It will support cancer therapy research, technology and infrastructure development, and private sector partnerships. in 2016, Bloomberg joined Vice President Joe Biden for the institute's formal launch, embracing Biden's "cancer moonshot" initiative, which seeks to find a cure for cancer through national coordination of government and private sector resources. In 2018, Bloomberg contributed a further gift of $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins, allowing the university to practice need-blind admission and meet the full financial need of admitted students.
In 2016, the Museum of Science, Boston announced a $50 million gift from Bloomberg. The donation marks Bloomberg's fourth gift to the museum, which he credits with sparking his intellectual curiosity as a patron and student during his youth in Medford, Massachusetts. The endowment supported the museum's education division, named the William and Charlotte Bloomberg Science Education Center in honor of Bloomberg's parents. It is the largest donation in the museum's 186-year history. In 2015, Bloomberg donated $100 million to Cornell Tech, the applied sciences graduate school of Cornell University, to construct the first academic building, "The Bloomberg Center", on the school's Roosevelt Island campus. In 1996, Bloomberg endowed the William Henry Bloomberg Professorship at Harvard University with a $3 million gift in honor of his father, who died in 1963, saying, "throughout his life, he recognized the importance of reaching out to the nonprofit sector to help better the welfare of the entire community." In July 2011, Bloomberg launched a $24 million initiative to fund "Innovation Delivery Teams" in five cities. The teams are one of Bloomberg Philanthropies' key goals: advancing government innovation. In December 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a partnership with online ticket search engine SeatGeek to connect artists with new audiences. Called the Discover New York Arts Project, the project includes organizations HERE, New York Theatre Workshop, and the Kaufman Center.
In 2016, Bloomberg gave Harvard $32 million to create the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative within Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation; the initiative provides training to mayors and their aides on innovative municipal leadership and challenges facing cities. Bloomberg has been a longtime donor to global tobacco control efforts. Bloomberg has donated close to $1 billion to the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote anti-smoking efforts, including $125 million in 2006, $250 million in 2008, and $360 million, making Bloomberg Philanthropies the developing world's biggest funder of tobacco-control initiatives. In 2013, it was reported that Bloomberg had donated $109.24 million in 556 grants and 61 countries to campaigns against tobacco. Bloomberg's contributions are aimed at "getting countries to monitor tobacco use, introduce strong tobacco-control laws, and create mass media campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco use." Bloomberg is the co-founder of Everytown for Gun Safety (formerly Mayors Against Illegal Guns), a gun control advocacy group. In August 2016, the World Health Organization appointed Bloomberg as its Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases. In this role, Bloomberg will mobilize private sector and political leaders to help the WHO reduce deaths from preventable diseases, traffic accidents, tobacco, obesity, and alcohol. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan cited Bloomberg's ongoing support for WHO anti-smoking, drowning prevention, and road safety programs in her announcement of his new role. n 2017, Bloomberg donated $75 million for The Shed, a new arts and cultural center in Hudson Yards, Manhattan. He continued his support for The Shed after his time as mayor with a philanthropic donation of $75 million. Bloomberg also endowed his hometown synagogue, Temple Shalom, which was renamed for his parents as the William and Charlotte Bloomberg Jewish Community Center of Medford. Bloomberg hosted the Global Business Forum on September 2017, during the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly; the gathering featured international CEOs, heads of state, and other prominent speakers.
Through his Bloomberg Philanthropies Foundation, he has donated and/or pledged $240 million in 2005, $60 million in 2006, $47 million in 2007, $150 million in 2009, $332 million in 2010, $311 million in 2011, and $510 million in 2015. 2011 recipients included the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; World Lung Foundation and the World Health Organization. According to The New York Times, Bloomberg was an "anonymous donor" to the Carnegie Corporation from 2001 to 2010, with gifts ranging from $5 million to $20 million each year. The Carnegie Corporation distributed these contributions to hundreds of New York City organizations ranging from the Dance Theatre of Harlem to Gilda's Club, a non-profit organization that provides support to people and families living with cancer. He continues to support the arts through his foundation. Bloomberg gave $254 million in 2009 to almost 1,400 nonprofit organizations.
Bloomberg is an environmentalist and has advocated policy to fight climate change at least since he became the mayor of New York City. At the national level, Bloomberg has consistently pushed for transitioning the United States' energy mix from fossil fuels to clean energy. In July 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $50 million to Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, allowing the campaign to expand its efforts to shut down coal-fired power plants from 15 states to 45 states. In 2015, Bloomberg announced an additional $30 million contribution to the Beyond Coal initiative, matched with another $30 million by other donors, to help secure the retirement of half of America's fleet of coal plants by 2017. In early June 2019, Bloomberg pledged $500 million to reduce climate impacts and shut remaining coal-fired power plants by 2030 via the new Beyond Carbon initiative. Bloomberg Philanthropies awarded a $6 million grant to the Environmental Defense Fund in support of strict regulations on fracking in the 14 states with the heaviest natural gas production.
In 2013, Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies launched the Risky Business initiative with former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer. The joint effort worked to convince the business community of the need for more sustainable energy and development policies, by quantifying and publicizing the economic risks the United States faces from the impact of climate change. In January 2015, Bloomberg led Bloomberg Philanthropies in a $48-million partnership with the Heising-Simons family to launch the Clean Energy Initiative. The initiative supports state-based solutions aimed at ensuring America has a clean, reliable, and affordable energy system. Since 2010, Bloomberg has taken an increasingly global role on environmental issues. From 2010 to 2013, he served as the chairman of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of the world's biggest cities working together to reduce carbon emissions. During his tenure, Bloomberg worked with President Bill Clinton to merge C40 with the Clinton Climate Initiative, with the goal of amplifying their efforts in the global fight against climate change worldwide. He serves as the president of the board of C40 Cities.
In January 2014, Bloomberg began a five-year commitment totaling $53 million through Bloomberg Philanthropies to the Vibrant Oceans Initiative. The initiative partners Bloomberg Philanthropies with Oceana, Rare, and Encourage Capital to help reform fisheries and increase sustainable populations worldwide. In 2018, Bloomberg joined Ray Dalio in announcing a commitment of $185 million towards protecting the oceans. In 2014, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed Bloomberg as his first Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change to help the United Nations work with cities to prevent climate change. In September 2014, Bloomberg convened with Ban and global leaders at the UN Climate Summit to announce definite action to fight climate change in 2015. In 2018, Ban's successor António Guterres appointed Bloomberg as UN envoy for climate action. In late 2014, Bloomberg, Ban Ki-moon, and global city networks ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), with support from UN-Habitat, launched the Compact of Mayors, a global coalition of mayors and city officials pledging to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions, enhance climate resilience, and track their progress transparently. To date, over 250 cities representing more than 300 million people worldwide and 4.1 percent of the total global population, have committed to the Compact of Mayors, which was merged with the Covenant of Mayors in June 2016. In 2015, Bloomberg and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo created the Climate Summit for Local Leaders which convened assembled hundreds of city leaders from around the world at Paris City Hall to discuss fighting climate change. The Summit concluded with the presentation of the Paris Declaration, a pledge by leaders from assembled global cities to cut carbon emissions by 3.7 gigatons annually by 2030.
During the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and chair of the Financial Stability Board, announced that Bloomberg would lead a new global task force designed to help industry and financial markets understand the growing risks of climate change. Following President Donald Trump's announcement that the U.S. government would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, Bloomberg outlined a coalition of cities, states, universities and businesses that had come together to honor America's commitment under the agreement through 'America's Pledge.' Bloomberg offered up to $15 million to the UNFCCC, the UN body that assists countries with climate change efforts. About a month later, Bloomberg and California Governor Jerry Brown announced that the America's Pledge coalition would work to "quantify the actions taken by U.S. states, cities and business to drive down greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement." In announcing the initiative, Bloomberg said "the American government may have pulled out of the Paris agreement, but American society remains committed to it." Two think tanks, World Resource Institute and the Rocky Mountain Institute, will work with America's Pledge to analyze the work cities, states and businesses do to meet the U.S. commitment to the Paris agreement. In May 2019, Bloomberg announced a 2020 Midwestern Collegiate Climate Summit in Washington University in St. Louis with the aim to bring together leaders from Midwestern universities, local government and the private sector to reduce climate impacts in the region.
As of 2019, Bloomberg has given more than $3.3 billion to Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater, making him "the most generous living donor to any education institution in the United States." His first contribution, in 1965, had been $5. He made his first $1 million commitment to JHU in 1984, and subsequently became the first individual to exceed $1 billion in lifetime donations to a single U.S. institution of higher education. Bloomberg's contributions to Johns Hopkins "fueled major improvements in the university's reputation and rankings, its competitiveness for faculty and students, and the appearance of its campus," and included construction of a children's hospital (the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center Building, named after Bloomberg's mother); a physics building, a school of public health (the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health), libraries, and biomedical research facilities, including the Institute for Cell Engineering, a stem-cell research institute within the School of Medicine, and the Malaria Research Institute within the School of Public Health.
In 2013, Bloomberg committed $350 million to Johns Hopkins, five-sevenths of which were allocated to the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships, endowing 50 Bloomberg Distinguished Professors (BDPs) whose interdisciplinary expertise crosses traditional academic disciplines. In 2016, on the School of Public Health's centennial, Bloomberg Philanthropies contributed $300 million to establish the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. Bloomberg also funded the launch of the Bloomberg–Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy within the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in East Baltimore, with a $50 million gift; an additional $50 million was given by philanthropist Sidney Kimmel, and $25 million by other donors. It will support cancer therapy research, technology and infrastructure development, and private sector partnerships. in 2016, Bloomberg joined Vice President Joe Biden for the institute's formal launch, embracing Biden's "cancer moonshot" initiative, which seeks to find a cure for cancer through national coordination of government and private sector resources. In 2018, Bloomberg contributed a further gift of $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins, allowing the university to practice need-blind admission and meet the full financial need of admitted students.
In 2016, the Museum of Science, Boston announced a $50 million gift from Bloomberg. The donation marks Bloomberg's fourth gift to the museum, which he credits with sparking his intellectual curiosity as a patron and student during his youth in Medford, Massachusetts. The endowment supported the museum's education division, named the William and Charlotte Bloomberg Science Education Center in honor of Bloomberg's parents. It is the largest donation in the museum's 186-year history. In 2015, Bloomberg donated $100 million to Cornell Tech, the applied sciences graduate school of Cornell University, to construct the first academic building, "The Bloomberg Center", on the school's Roosevelt Island campus. In 1996, Bloomberg endowed the William Henry Bloomberg Professorship at Harvard University with a $3 million gift in honor of his father, who died in 1963, saying, "throughout his life, he recognized the importance of reaching out to the nonprofit sector to help better the welfare of the entire community." In July 2011, Bloomberg launched a $24 million initiative to fund "Innovation Delivery Teams" in five cities. The teams are one of Bloomberg Philanthropies' key goals: advancing government innovation. In December 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a partnership with online ticket search engine SeatGeek to connect artists with new audiences. Called the Discover New York Arts Project, the project includes organizations HERE, New York Theatre Workshop, and the Kaufman Center.
In 2016, Bloomberg gave Harvard $32 million to create the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative within Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation; the initiative provides training to mayors and their aides on innovative municipal leadership and challenges facing cities. Bloomberg has been a longtime donor to global tobacco control efforts. Bloomberg has donated close to $1 billion to the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote anti-smoking efforts, including $125 million in 2006, $250 million in 2008, and $360 million, making Bloomberg Philanthropies the developing world's biggest funder of tobacco-control initiatives. In 2013, it was reported that Bloomberg had donated $109.24 million in 556 grants and 61 countries to campaigns against tobacco. Bloomberg's contributions are aimed at "getting countries to monitor tobacco use, introduce strong tobacco-control laws, and create mass media campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco use." Bloomberg is the co-founder of Everytown for Gun Safety (formerly Mayors Against Illegal Guns), a gun control advocacy group. In August 2016, the World Health Organization appointed Bloomberg as its Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases. In this role, Bloomberg will mobilize private sector and political leaders to help the WHO reduce deaths from preventable diseases, traffic accidents, tobacco, obesity, and alcohol. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan cited Bloomberg's ongoing support for WHO anti-smoking, drowning prevention, and road safety programs in her announcement of his new role. n 2017, Bloomberg donated $75 million for The Shed, a new arts and cultural center in Hudson Yards, Manhattan. He continued his support for The Shed after his time as mayor with a philanthropic donation of $75 million. Bloomberg also endowed his hometown synagogue, Temple Shalom, which was renamed for his parents as the William and Charlotte Bloomberg Jewish Community Center of Medford. Bloomberg hosted the Global Business Forum on September 2017, during the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly; the gathering featured international CEOs, heads of state, and other prominent speakers.
