Slams against Walsh over funds don’t help

As the coronavirus pandemic was ramping up in March, Mayor Martin Walsh announced the Boston Resiliency Fund, designed to give fundraising efforts city muscle, and provide help for Hub families, elderly and first responders who had taken heavy hits from the spread of COVID-19.

“In the face of big challenges, our city shows its true colors. We’ve been seeing incredible acts of kindness and generosity and the Boston Resiliency Fund is a perfect example of that,” Walsh said in a press release. “Through this fund, we are coordinating Boston’s philanthropic efforts to support families that are facing the greatest need right now.”

It raised more than $31 million, and distributed more than $24 million to 247 organizations and nonprofits.

But no good deed goes unpunished — especially when there’s a mayoral election a year away.

At-large City Councilor Michelle Wu told WGBH’s Boston Public Radio, “Whenever we’re in a position where the mayor of Boston, and the official position of City Hall, is soliciting money from donors and corporations and then deciding which nonprofits get it in our city — that just creates a very disruptive and dangerous dynamic.”

The city, in the early stages of a pandemic, coordinated fundraising efforts to amass an enormous amount of money, quickly, and get it to those who needed it. And that’s a bad thing … how?

“When that happens through city government and not through nonprofits and foundations,” Wu added, “we are distorting the political process, so nonprofits then are now having to compete for money that is going through the mayor instead of through private charities and philanthropy — and that means they have to say the right things, do the right things, show up to the budget hearings, testifying in support.”

When private charities raise money on their own, they must compete for money with other charities and philanthropies seeking funds for their particular causes.

The coordinated fundraising efforts of the Resiliency Fund proved quite efficient, judging by the numbers. The only thing wrong with it is that it happened under the aegis of Mayor Walsh.

His honor also took hits for Racial Equity Fund, which targets the economic empowerment of Boston residents of color.

“We need more dollars, more funding going to communities of color, going to Black-led organizations, going to Black and brown residents, that is unquestionable,” Wu told WGBH. “But from my perspective, this is not adding to that. This is city government stepping in to suck the money that would otherwise be going through efforts led and created by Black and brown business leaders in Boston, and injecting this political element to it, when in fact, our jobs in city government is to do the structural work.”

As the city works to improve racial equity, especially in terms of economic empowerment, one would think an all-hands-ondeck-approach would best serve the community.

But not, apparently, with a mayoral election on the horizon. Slams du jour over Walsh’s latest policy or initiative should not be the agenda until election day 2021.

Both the mayor and the City Council work for the people — and there is lots of work that needs doing. As Harry Truman once said “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

The residents of Boston deserve leaders focused on accomplishment, not discrediting others to score political points.