In the Arts: Bloomberg Offers Private Support With $32-Million Offer

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s family charity is making $32-million in grants available to arts organizations around the city, writes The Wall Street Journal.

The Bloomberg Family Foundation today is scheduled to invite 250 cultural groups to apply for grants ranging from $25,000 to $350,000 over two years. Three-quarters of the money will go to organizations with annual operating budgets of less than $3-million.

The move comes a year after an anonymous donor, long presumed to be Mr. Bloomberg, stopped making donations to such groups. The money had been given under an arrangement with the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Mr. Bloomberg was the second-most generous donor of the past year, according to The Chronicle’s new Philanthropy 50 rankings.

In other arts news:

● An Iowa legislator wants the University of Iowa to sell a $140-million Jackson Pollock work to fund scholarships, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reports.

The bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Scott Raecker, would use the sale proceeds to create a trust, interest from which would fund aid for in-state students.

University regents considered selling Pollock’s “Mural” in 2008 to help pay for more than $740-million in damage caused by floods that year but rejected the plan amid strong opposition from campus and arts groups.

● Charles R. Wall, who took office January 1 as chairman of the New York City Opera, tells The New York Times the struggling organization is making a financial comeback.

Mr. Wall said the opera, which saw its endowment plummet from $33-million to $6-million in the 2008 market crunch, is raising funds at a record pace and will likely post a balanced budget this fiscal year.