Billionaire-Backed Nonprofit to Fund San Francisco’s Downtown Recovery Projects | KQED

“It’s not that it’s not a worthy cause,” McMorris said about the DDC’s goals to improve downtown. “But it raises the issue of purchasing influence. I’m sure the people who are being solicited are pretty well-heeled and have their own interests with the city.”

Even simple beautification projects can be a concern, he said: “That has to do with housing and real estate.”

San Francisco voters in 2022 passed a law making it harder for public officials to solicit private donations after a massive corruption scandal sent former city leaders, including Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, to prison.

For the DDC, Lurie will seek a waiver for behested payments — essentially donations requested by public officials for city projects or funds. But this effort is separate from the expanded authority that Lurie gained shortly after taking office through his fentanyl emergency ordinance, which allows him to accept private dollars for programs and services related to homelessness and overdose response.

The DDC will primarily be focused on downtown recovery through “physical upgrades like trees and outdoor dining to economic tools like credit and small business support,” according to a press release.

The group could potentially fundraise to get housing projects off the ground faster as well, according to Stiepleman.

“Shelter and housing are covered by an actual department of the city. And that’s where it ought to be. But to the extent we can be helpful in supplementing plans that bear on making downtown more economically viable, we will be open to that,” he said. “We’re not going to be prescriptive.”

Stiepleman did not share what the group’s initial fundraising goals are or which of the city’s mega donors are tapping in.

Another question McMorris raised: What happens to these private fundraising streams once a new mayoral administration steps in?

“When you’re constantly relying on the private sector to implement or buy into your policies, you become reliant upon them, then the efficacy of government becomes less,” he said.

Stiepleman said the vision is to use private capital to move more quickly on essential projects downtown in the short term, but he hopes the efforts can eventually transfer over to public financing pipelines.

“If we’ve done our job correctly, this becomes a sustained generational kind of effort. Eventually, that has to be generated from public funds,” he said. “But in the meantime, we’re going to get it going with a substantial private capital base.”