With More Private Giving, Bloomberg Forges Ties - New York Times

With More Private Giving, Bloomberg Forges Ties - New York Times: "With More Private Giving, Bloomberg Forges Ties

By SAM ROBERTS and JIM RUTENBERG
Published: May 23, 2005
As a self-made billionaire, Michael R. Bloomberg was one of the nation's leading philanthropists well before he ran for mayor of New York in 2001. He has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to a wide variety of causes - mostly to educational institutions and medical research - from his own personal fortune, through family foundations and through his financial information services corporation, Bloomberg L.P.

But in the four years since his first mayoral race, the breadth of his philanthropy has expanded starkly. Now, many more community and cultural groups and social-service organizations in New York City are as likely to be beneficiaries as are medical centers in Baltimore or professorships at Harvard. And as Mr. Bloomberg gears up for a re-election campaign, the vast impact of his charitable contributions - a total of about $140 million in donations last year alone to more than 800 institutions and groups, a growing number of them local - is emerging as a potentially formidable weapon as he cultivates alliances in all five boroughs."