Bloomberg: Billionaire Donors Must Be Realistic About Goals

In his first wide-ranging interview on philanthropy since leaving New York City’s mayoralty, Michael R. Bloomberg tells The New York Times that big-spending donors should be realistic about what they can achieve on their own and focus on areas where they can test new ideas and get government funding for the ones that work.

“All the billionaires added together are, as they’d say, bupkis compared to the amount of money that government spends,” the 72-year-old media mogul said in an interview at the office of his Bloomberg Philanthropies. “It’s trillions of dollars. Private philanthropy can’t do that.”

Mr. Bloomberg gave away $452-million last year, which ranked him No. 4 on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Philanthropy 50 list of top U.S. donors. He has stated plans to donate his entire fortune, estimated by Forbes at $32-billion, in his lifetime.

He said his giving will center on issues other philanthropists are not tackling: “You want to do things where your money matters. I’d argue another gift to fight a disease that has a lot of the world’s attention and people are focusing on it is not where I want us to go.”