Follow the Data Podcast

Across the country and around the world, housing costs are soaring.

Rents rose by 6.2% annually in 2022, after growing by almost 15% in 2021, according to Yardi Matrix.

And the impacts of these rising costs are clear: research from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shows that nearly one third of renters did not pay or were late with the rent at least once in 2022.

For several years, the Bloomberg Associates Sustainability team has worked closely with our client cities to address key housing affordability issues. This effort led to Bloomberg Associates and Bloomberg Philanthropies’ partnership with NYU’s Furman Center for Housing and Real Estate and Abt Associates to create the Bloomberg Peer Cities Housing Network, funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Government Innovation team, in Summer 2020.

The Network, a program that worked with a nationwide group of city leaders to address pressing housing-related needs, provided resources and guidance – and the opportunity to exchange learnings with cities facing similar challenges. This met a particularly urgent need during the pandemic as local governments challenged existing thinking and responded rapidly to convert hotels into housing, to provide residents with direct cash assistance, and more.

On this episode, Katherine Oliver sits down with Ingrid Gould Ellen, who serves as the Director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy and is on the faculty of the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; Vero Soto, the former Director of the Neighborhood & Housing Services Department of the City of San Antonio, who now spearheads the U.S. Treasury Department’s Emergency Rental Assistance program; and Adam Freed, the Sustainability Principal of Bloomberg Associates. They discuss how cities responded to housing problems posed by COVID-19, and how the Bloomberg Peer Cities Housing Network helped to facilitate these initiatives.

Black communities in the U.S. breathe dirtier air than communities that are predominantly White. According to research aggregated by the American Lung Association, Black people face higher exposure to air pollutants, and suffer greater risk of premature death from particle pollution.

This episode of Follow the Data is the second of a two-part series that includes panels from Bloomberg’s 2022 Power of Difference Summit, held in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies' Greenwood Initiative, which convened speakers from Bloomberg Philanthropies and other critical organizations to discuss how we're tackling climate action in overburdened and underinvested Black communities. The Summit also highlighted The Black Wealth Data Center, conceived and funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative and incubated by Prosperity Now, a leading nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. focused on racial equity.

The Black Wealth Data Center's Racial Wealth Equity Database gives policymakers – and the public – access to data by race at the local, regional and national level to empower them to take action to address racial wealth inequities that exist today.

On this episode, Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads the Greenwood Initiative, a national effort that aims to accelerate the pace of wealth accumulation for Black individuals and families and address systemic underinvestment in Black communities, is joined by two leading experts working to protect underserved communities from climate change and environmental injustice: Jacqueline Patterson, the Founder and Executive Director of The Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership, and Mitchell J. Silver, the Principal of Urban Planning at McAdams - a land planning and design company.

Garnesha, Jacqueline and Mitchell discuss how historically marginalized populations are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change and environmental injustice. They also share examples of communities that are actively working to combat these challenges.

Communities of color face disproportionate risks from the effects of climate change. For example, according to New York Times Magazine, African-Americans are 75 percent more likely than other communities to live near facilities that produce hazardous waste. Data like this makes it clear that tackling climate change, improving public health, and fighting racial inequality all go together.  

This episode of Follow the Data is the first in a two-part series that features live discussions from the Power of Difference Summit, held in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies' Greenwood Initiative in October 2022, which focused on equitable climate approaches that improve the well-being of overburdened and underinvested Black communities.  

Stephanie Dockery of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Arts team spoke with two artists who use their work to tackle these issues: Vedra Chandler, artist and project manager of the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Public Art Challenge projects in Camden, NJ, partnered with the Mayor of Camden, Rutgers-Camden University, and the nonprofit Camden Community Partnership to reclaim public space by transforming highly visible illegal dumping lots into venues for public art.  

She joined fellow panelist Erika Dickerson-Despenza, a New Orleans-based poet and award-winning playwright. Erika's plays primarily focus on the legacy of Black land and environmental racism.  

Erika and Vedra are both addressing racial inequity in climate justice through the arts, actively working to eradicate systemic inequality, which is so aligned with Bloomberg Philanthropies’ mission to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people around the world. 

Maternal mortality is a leading cause of death worldwide, causing nearly 300,000 deaths every year, but the majority of these deaths are entirely preventable.

In 2006, Tanzania ranked number 6 in the world in terms of maternal mortality, which led Bloomberg Philanthropies to partner with the Government of Tanzania to increase access to emergency obstetric and reproductive care in one state, the Kigoma Region.

The partnership lasted until 2019, when the government fully took over the program. New findings show that in the Kigoma Region from 2013 to 2018 the institutional maternal mortality rate dropped by 43%,  the stillbirth rate dropped by 52%, and deliveries in a healthcare facility increased by 74%.

On this episode of Follow the Data, Becky Bavinger of our Public Health team is joined by Dr. Leonard Subi, the former Regional Medical Officer in the Kigoma Region and now the Executive Director of the Kibong'oto Specialized Infectious Diseases Hospital, and Dr. Sunday Dominico, the Clinical Director of Thamini Uhai. They discuss the obstacles women in the region faced to access quality maternal care, and how we used proven measures – like upgrading health facilities and training non-physician clinicians – to help prevent these deaths.

What happens when you put more than 500 city leaders, experts, innovators, and artists from representing cities around the world in one room? 

We found out once again at Bloomberg CityLab 2022, the ninth meeting of the preeminent global cities summit organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the Aspen Institute – ideas, innovation, and scalable solutions. 

Held in Amsterdam in October, in CityLab’s first in-person convening since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, global mayors, prominent city innovators, business leaders, urban experts, artists, and activists tackled how to solve some of the pressing issues facing cities around the world – from leading their communities through pandemic recovery to welcoming refugees from global conflicts to combatting climate change.

Around the world, cities are leading the way. Sessions explored the challenges cities are facing – and successfully addressing – across climate, infrastructure, technology, migration, mental health, and more. One of the most powerful conversations was between James Anderson, who leads the Government Innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, of Mexico City. 

On this episode, listen in with us, as they discuss how city leaders can lead digital transformations in their municipalities to make sure that everyone has access to the rights that they deserve as citizens, through digital services, connectivity, and direct access to information or governmental services.

Think of the last impulse purchase you made when you were in the checkout aisle at the grocery store. Was it a bottle of soda? A bag of chips?

As it turns out, food and beverage manufacturers pay retailers millions of dollars to dictate where their products are placed in the store -- influencing the way shoppers interact with food offerings in the busiest aisles. These practices are incredibly effective at getting shoppers to make impulse buys, which tend to be unhealthy.

As rates of obesity and diet-related disease continue to rise around the world, Bloomberg Philanthropies is supporting policy efforts that encourage healthier diets including efforts to raise public awareness of unhealthy food and beverage marketing. One example was the city of Berkeley, California's ban on the sale of junk food and candy in checkout aisles - a first of its kind policy in the U.S.

In this episode, Kristine Momanyi of the Bloomberg Philanthropies public health team sits down with Sara John, the Senior Policy Director at CSPI - the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Ingrid de Santiago, the Program Coordinator at Bay Area Community Resources, and Anjelika Khadka, a youth advocate taking a stand for healthier food environments in her community. They discuss the deceptive marketing practices food and beverage manufacturers employ to sway shoppers' decisions in grocery stores and CSPI's request to the Federal Trade Commission to bring these practices to light. Ingrid and Anjelika also tell us more about the Bay Area's initial reception to the healthy checkout ordinance and learnings from advocating for local healthy food policies.

As global leaders aim toward limiting the planet's warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,  scientists warn extreme rainfalls, stronger storms, and hurricanes intensifying at faster rates will become more frequent.

A warming world and extreme weather events will have implications for all industries and geographies — and the arts industry in Puerto Rico experienced this firsthand when Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.Following Hurricane Maria, many artists and arts organizations like museums, theaters, arts education programs, and music venues were at risk of cutting back services or closing because of lost revenue and other challenges.

In Fall 2020, Bloomberg Philanthropies teamed up with the Flamboyan Arts Fund, a partnership between Flamboyan Foundation, composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, his family, and the Broadway musical Hamilton to preserve, sustain, and amplify the arts in Puerto Rico, to launch the Arts Innovation and Management Puerto Rico program. The program brings together national and local experts to provide bilingual arts management training and tailored consulting services for fundraising, strategic planning, and digital marketing. It also includes resilience training for responding to climate change and natural disasters, including future hurricanes, with cultural institutions in Puerto Rico sharing key strategies and insights from their direct experiences.

In this episode, Ethan Joseph of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Arts team sits down with María Ángela López Vilella, Executive Director of Museo de las Américas, a museum dedicated to the history and culture of the Americas, particularly Puerto Rico, and, one of the ten organizations currently participating in the AIM Puerto Rico program. They discuss the unique challenges that climate change presents to the cultural sector and steps that arts organizations may consider taking to help prepare for and respond to climate change-driven hazards. They also discuss specific strategies that cultural organizations in Puerto Rico have adopted to build climate resilience in the five years since Hurricane Maria and further support their communities by becoming spaces for healing and education.

This is a very special episode. To celebrate the release of the 2021 Annual Report, our yearly review of Bloomberg Philanthropies' efforts to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people, our founder, Mike Bloomberg, and CEO, Patti Harris, joined the podcast.  

Mike Bloomberg has committed the vast majority of profits from Bloomberg LP, the global financial technology, data, and media company that he founded, to support the work of Bloomberg Philanthropies. He has given $12.7 billion to philanthropic causes over his lifetime, and $1.66 billion in 2021 alone.  

Patti Harris oversees Bloomberg Philanthropies' work, spanning our core focus areas: the arts, education, environment, government innovation, and public health, as well as the Greenwood Initiative, which aims to accelerate the pace of Black wealth accumulation, and special Founder's Projects. This work also encompasses all of Mike Bloomberg's corporate and personal philanthropy, and Bloomberg Associates, a pro bono consultancy that works in cities around the world.  

Mike and Patti sat down with me to discuss Bloomberg Philanthropies' progress in responding to the pandemic without losing sight of other challenges, Bloomberg LP's efforts to support organizations working in Ukraine, and their outlook on the challenges tackled and opportunities ahead. 

Read the 2021 Annual Report here. 

Follow Mike on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 

Follow Patti on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.