NEW YORK CITY TO INCREASE AID FOR NONPROFITS

According to Reuters, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed increasing bridge loans to nonprofits by 150 percent and expanding the city’s revolving loan-guarantee program to nonprofit borrowers. New York City has more than forty thousand cultural, health, and social-service nonprofit groups that employ nearly five hundred thousand people, or 15 percent of the city’s work force, Bloomberg said in a statement. The mayor outlined ten initiatives to help the city’s nonprofit organizations cope with an increase in demand for services while the recession creates cash-flow problems and erodes operating support. He proposed that the New York City Returnable Grant Fund be increased to twenty million dollars, from eight million dollars, for the next two fiscal years. The mayor also proposed increasing the number of organizations the loans can be extended to and the conditions under which they would qualify. Following up on an initiative announced last fall, Bloomberg said the city will partner with nonprofit lenders to provide revolving bank loans.

Bloomberg will also assist nonprofits by teaming up with philanthropists Blair and Cheryl Cohen Effron and Gretchen and Jamie Rubin to create Greater NY, a program aimed at pairing business executives with nonprofit executive directors in two-year one-on-one partnerships. More than thirty business executives have agreed to volunteer for the program.