In response to Mayor Bloomberg’s support of efforts to improve New York’s look — from the skyline to the waterfront to the grass in small parks — some nonprofits are rapidly growing to take advantage of the opportunity to help.

“We want to get things done under the Bloomberg administration. We have a greater public mandate now,” the executive director of the Design Trust for Public Space, Deborah Marton, said Tuesday at the organization’s fall fund-raiser, held at the studios of architect Rafael Viñoly.

To accomplish its latest project — redesigning the taxicab of the future — the organization has doubled its budget in the 2006–2007 fiscal year, to $1 million from $500,000.

The additional funds will help execute Taxi 07, whose components include a master plan produced in collaboration with the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission; an exhibit of prototype taxis at the Javits Center in April during the New York International Auto Show, and a public awareness campaign that includes a taxi-themed film series and an exhibit on taxi history at the Museum of the City of New York.

Producing prototype taxis for the Javits Center exhibit will be particularly costly, Ms. Marton said. In addition to completely new designs, the exhibit will include small changes that can be implemented quickly such as new partitions that can be installed in current taxicabs.

“Bloomberg’s interest in public space has been an opportunity for groups to come together and make some traction,” a board member of the trust, Alison Bauer, said.

While raising funds is never easy, Ms. Bauer said that New Yorkers have been responding to the trust’s projects because they can see the transformations they are supporting. “This isn’t healthcare or education. Public spaces make a difference in people’s daily lives,” she said.

Some of those who came out to support the trust at the party were the chairman of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Paul Herzan; executive director of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Holly Block; the executive director of the Sculpture Center, Mary Ceruti the president of the Municipal Art Society, Kent Barwick; the administrative director of the Noguchi Museum, Amy Hau; the executive editor of ArtNews, Robin Cembalest; the president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Kenneth Adams, and artists George Negroponte, Sheila Metzger, Bryant Botero, and Amy Yoes, who contributed work for an auction that night. A board member of the trust, Kitty Hawks, was the mastermind of the event.