Opportunity NYC
Opportunity NYC was an experimental Conditional Cash Transfer program (CCT) by the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. Announced in April 2007, it was the first CCT program to be launched in the United States or any other developed nation. Its initial phases were funded by a number of private partners including The Rockefeller Foundation, Robin Hood Foundation, the Open Society Institute, Starr Foundation, AIG, and Mayor Bloomberg's own Bloomberg Family Foundation. The program is being evaluated by MDRC, a nonprofit research firm, using a random assignment research design. Opportunity NYC is administered by Seedco, a nonprofit community development organization. The program ended on August 31, 2010.
Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg assumed office as the 108th Mayor of New York City on January 1, 2002. He won re-election in 2005 and again in 2009. As mayor, Bloomberg initially struggled to gain high approval levels from the public; however, he subsequently developed and maintained high approval ratings. His re-election meant the Republicans had won the previous four mayoral elections (although Bloomberg's decision to leave the Republican Party and be declared an independent on June 19, 2007, resulted in the Republican Party's losing the mayor's seat prior to the expiration of his second term). Bloomberg joined Rudy Giuliani and Fiorello La Guardia as re-elected Republican mayors in the mostly Democratic city. (John Lindsay was also elected mayor of New York City twice while a registered Republican; however, Lindsay did not receive the Republican Party nomination during his 1969 campaign for re-election but ran successfully on the Liberal ticket and joined the Democratic Party during his second term.)