Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s nonprofit inaugural committee collected $1.1 million in private donations, most of which came from heavyweight money managers and lawyers who already had contributed big money to his political campaign, according to a list released Thursday by the mayor’s camp.
Among the contributors was Grosvenor Capital Management CEO Michael Sacks, whom Emanuel recently named as vice chairman of World Business Chicago. Emanuel expanded the board as part of his effort to attract new businesses and create jobs. Sacks and his wife, Cari, each contributed $25,000 to the inaugural fund.
Other Grosvenor employees and spouses contributed another $22,500 to the inaugural effort, the records show. The firm’s employees also gave more than $400,000 to Emanuel’s mayoral campaign fund.
Nearly half of the inaugural money raised came from money managers. Emanuel has longstanding ties to that industry, where he built his personal wealth as an investment banker prior to his 2002 run for Congress.
“I think what you will find is that the ratios of contributions pretty much match his campaign funds,” said Tom Bowen, the spokesman for the Emanuel campaign who put together the list.
Money managers also accounted for nearly $5 million of Emanuel’s nearly $15 million mayoral campaign fund.
The entertainment community was absent from the list of inaugural donors after giving $1.5 million to his campaign — largely because of the influence of Emanuel’s brother Ari, a Hollywood agent.
Lawyers contributed $142,000 to the inaugural fund and $1.1 million to the mayoral campaign.
The inaugural committee released the list of its 89 donors Thursday afternoon, months after it had promised to make the names public. The money paid for the weekend of festivities leading up to Emanuel’s inauguration before some 7,500 people in Millennium Park on May 16. The list included eight $50,000 contributors, including the Clifford Law Offices, Fred Eychaner of NewsWeb Corp., Kenneth Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, and private investor Eric Lefkofsky, who also sat on the inaugural planning committee.
A dozen contributors gave $25,000. Among them were real estate investor Barry Malkin and former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, who co-chaired the inaugural committee.
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