Be your own Bloomberg: Start small -- Nov. 22, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The year after he graduated, Michael Bloomberg donated the princely sum of $5 to Johns Hopkins University. It was all he could afford.

Donating became a habit. Over the years, the 1964 graduate contributed $1.5 billion to the school for research, teaching and financial aid.

That was the warmup for his latest eye-popping gift.

Bloomberg, billionaire business tycoon and philanthropist, former mayor of New York and possible 2020 presidential candidate, just gave his alma mater an additional $1.8 billion – with a B – solely for student financial aid. It’s believed to be the largest donation to an educational institution in American history.

Why?

“No qualified high school student should ever be barred entrance to a college based on his or her family’s bank account. Yet it happens all the time,” Bloomberg wrote in an op-ed Nov. 18 in The New York Times.

“Denying students entry to college based on their ability to pay undermines equal opportunity. It perpetuates poverty. And it strikes at the heart of the American dream: the idea that every person, from every community, has the chance to rise based on merit,” he wrote.

Most elite schools consider a student’s ability to pay during the admissions process and turn away qualified students from low- and middle-income families.

Bloomberg’s gift will ensure a “need-blind” admissions policy at Hopkins, where tuition and fees for undergraduates tops $53,000 a year. Students will receive scholarships instead of taking out student loans. The idea is to create a student body that is socioeconomically diverse.  

Bloomberg, founder of the financial data services firm Bloomberg L.P., credits his success to his undergraduate education. His father was a bookkeeper who never made more than $6,000 a year, but the son was able to go to Hopkins with the help of a National Defense Student loan and a job on campus.

“My Hopkins diploma opened doors that otherwise would have been closed and allowed me to live the American dream,” he wrote. He earned an MBA from Harvard in 1966.

Now a registered Democrat, Bloomberg, 76, served three terms as mayor of New York as a Republican and independent. After considering a presidential bid in 2016, he gave millions to help Democratic House candidates in the midterms and is weighing a presidential bid in 2020.

As massive as Bloomberg’s gift is, though, it will help lucky students at only one university. To change the shape of American higher education generally will take changes on the state and federal level, so don’t hold your breath.

But the rest of us can step up on Giving Tuesday. The Tuesday after Thanksgiving has become an antidote to the spending excesses of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

Now in its seventh year, it’s the day people around the world contribute to worthy causes. Last year, more than $274 million was raised from more than 2.5 million contributions, an increase of $97 million or 55 percent overall, from 2016.

Giving Tuesday isn’t political and doesn’t accept or distribute contributions. People donate on their favorite charity’s website or through a social media platform and publicize their choice with the hashtag #givingtuesday.

It was founded by the 92^nd Street Y, a cultural and community center in New York, in partnership with the United National Foundation. Founder Henry Timms, president and CEO of the Y, is co-author of the best-selling book, “New Power,” and the son of one of my closest friends.

Bloomberg has done his part to help his college, and he hopes others will help theirs – “whether the check is for $5, $50, $50,000 or more,” he wrote.

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Giving Tuesday invites us to reflect on what’s important to us. Maybe your cause is health, poverty, social justice, the arts, or the victims who’ve lost everything in the wildfires in California. Maybe you’d rather give your support to local groups.

Give carefully. When you send money, be aware of scammers. You can research organizations at CharityNavigator.org, GuideStar.org and CharityWatch.org to make sure your money is put to good use.

We can’t all give like Bloomberg, but we all can do something to make the country better – and make ourselves feel better. Happy Giving Tuesday.

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Giving Tuesday accentuates the positive -- Nov. 23, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

After the post-Thanksgiving buying spree of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday comes Giving Tuesday, a day to give back.

On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, we remember the wisdom of the Beatles: Money “can’t buy me love.” But giving it away can make us feel better.

Now in its sixth year, Giving Tuesday raised a respectable $10 million online for charities and nonprofits in 2012. Fueled by social media, it has grown and spread worldwide.

People in about 100 countries participated last year, raising $168 million for worthy causes, an increase of 44 percent from 2015. The average contribution was about $108.

Giving Tuesday encourages us to take a breath, reflect on what’s important and act on our values by contributing time, energy or cash. Companies also participate, recognizing that customers, especially millennials, like doing business with companies that share their values.

Giving is so strongly associated with our culture that the Museum of American History launched a Giving in America project two years ago, collecting artifacts such as a March of Dimes collection can and a bucket from the ALS ice bucket challenge that swept the country in 2014.

The museum will sponsor a day-long Giving Tuesday celebration in which kids and adults can share how they give and why.

Facebook and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will match up to $2 million in donations to U.S. nonprofits through Facebook, which is also waiving its fees for donations made on Facebook that day.

Observers credited the rise in Giving Tuesday contributions last year partly to a “Trump effect” of people speaking with their wallets following the election. The ACLU, Anti-Defamation League and Planned Parenthood were among groups that reported spikes in donations.

The Trump effect worked both ways. The Donald J. Trump Foundation raised $2.9 million last year, nearly as much as it did in the previous four years combined. It donated about $3 million to nonprofits, mostly to veterans groups, distributing more last year than it had in the last three years combined, The New York Times reported Monday.

Trump hasn’t actually contributed to his own charity since 2008, but a couple of deep-pocketed donors wrote checks for $1 million each. Trump announced he’s shutting down his foundation, though he hasn’t yet, according to the Times.

Giving Tuesday isn’t political and it doesn’t accept or distribute contributions. It encourages each person to choose a favorite charity, donate on the charity’s website and publicize the choice on social media with the hashtag #givingtuesday.

It was founded in New York by the 92^nd Street Y, a cultural and community center in New York, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation. Founder Henry Timms, executive director of the Y, is the son of one of my closest friends.

Many studies have shown helping others makes you happy. Volunteers may also live longer, manage their pain better and lower their blood pressure more than those who don’t volunteer.

Behavioral economists write about the “warm glow” effect. If you’re generous with your time, talents or money, you’re likely to report higher levels of well-being.

It may be all in your head, literally. Acts of generosity activate a part of the brain linked to happiness, a Swiss study released last summer found.

Participants were promised about $26 a week for four weeks. Half were asked to commit to spending the money on someone else and half on themselves. After deciding how they’d spend the money, the subjects received MRI scans and answered questions.

People spending the money on others reported feeling happier than those who were treating themselves. The scans showed generosity triggered a response in a part of the brain related to happiness.

Interestingly, this happened even though the participants never actually received or spent any money. And it didn’t matter how much they planned to give.

“You don’t need to become a self-sacrificing martyr to feel happier. Just being a little more generous will suffice,” said Phillipe Tobler, one of the researchers.

On this Giving Tuesday, we can all make ourselves feel better by acting on our values and priorities.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.