Bloomberg’s Giving
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
It’s impressive. The $139.3 million that Mayor Bloomberg and his company, Bloomberg L.P., donated to charity last year is more than the Rockefeller Foundation, with $3.2 billion in assets, gave away in 2004. The $128.3 million that the Rockefeller Foundation gave away last year, according to the Foundation Center, is less than Mr. Bloomberg gave away in 2002 or 2003, too. One may quibble with this or that contribution of Mr. Bloomberg, but it’s his money, and overall he deserves credit for the unassuming style in which he has contributed to so many causes in this city and around the country. He’s done it in an earnest and low-key, but nonetheless magnificently generous, way that has had effects in countless schools, hospitals, parks, camps, museums, and concert halls.
We are in the middle of a mayoral campaign in which the Democrats are out to criticize the mayor. These columns, too, haven’t hesitated to express differences from time to time with Mr. Bloomberg on matters of policy. Some carp that the mayor is somehow trying to buy political popularity with these gifts. But reading in yesterday’s New York Sun the names of the 843 organizations to which Mr. Bloomberg dispensed his millions is enough to take the snicker out of the worst cynic and leave him of a mind to thank the mayor and admire him for his philanthropy. It’s a way in which the Eagle Scout mayor lives up to the Scout oath to “help other people at all times.”
Such generosity helps undercut the leftist argument that rich people are selfish or evil. And it’s an example of how great fortunes can be put to use in a way that benefits the public without government confiscatory or redistributionist programs. And it reminds us of the social mobility that, in America more than anywhere else, allows a person from humble origins in Medford, Mass., to rank with the Rockefellers. Few of us will ever be as rich as Mr. Bloomberg, but in his way he sets an example of giving that those who are inclined to give can each aspire to emulate on his own scale.