Boston Olympics Initiative Raises $3.9M in First Quarter

BOSTON—The Boston 2024 Partnership, which is championing the city's bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, has raised $14 million in cash and gifts-in-kind contributions since its inception in January 2014.

The partnership in its first quarterly progress report released on Friday states that it received $2,887,590 in cash contributions and another $980,532 in gifts in kind donations in the first quarter of this year.

Boston 2024 Chairman Steve Pagliuca states in a letter included in the first quarter report that it is seeking to embark on an open transparent process moving forward. “In adopting this expanded set of disclosures, the Boston 2024 Partnership is managing its operations in a transparent way that far exceeds regulatory requirements and standards of other non-profit organizations," he states. "And that's appropriate. For our mission to be successful, we need to continue to earn the confidence and trust of our neighbors in Boston and throughout the Commonwealth.”

The city's bid has become somewhat controversial, prompting Gov. Charlie Baker to announce that Massachusetts had hired consulting firm The Brattle Group of Cambridge, MA to conduct an independent analysis of the potential impacts of the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games being hosted in Boston. A recent poll by the Boston Globe found that 49.6% of voters statewide were against the Olympics bid, while 46.6% supported the games coming to Boston.

Pagliuca in his letter in the first quarter report noted that recent meetings with the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland were informative. He states Boston 2024 has since “identified further areas to reduce costs, increase revenue and maintain the special quality of the athlete and spectator experience—wins across the board.”

He continues, “Our other takeaway from our visit to the IOC is that we still have much to learn and absorb in this process. Our colleagues at the IOC were incredibly supportive and reminded us to slow down, learn from past bid and host cities, and focus on taking a collaborative approach to each step in the bid process. In sharing their own experiences working with bid cities, they stressed the importance of community engagement, and we continue to take this to heart. We will be working even more closely with our neighbors and key stakeholders throughout the city and the state to keep everyone actively engaged in the multi-faceted planning process.”

The largest cash and gift –in-kind contributions received by Boston 2024 since January 2014 was between $1 million to $2.5 million from John and Cindy Fish, Red & Blue Foundation. Other significant donations included Mintz Levin. Hill Holiday, Bank of America and EMC Corp. which each contributed from $500,000 to $999,999 to the city's Olympics initiative.

In the first quarter of this year, the Boston 2024 Partnership spent $2,023,700. The largest expense by far was venue selection and verification functions.

Boston 2024 is expected to provide further details on its bid when it updates the United States Olympic Committee on June 30. The USOC has a deadline of Sept. 15, 2015 to submit a host American city to the International Olympic Committee, which will make its final selection in the summer of 2017.