An open call from Roger Hartley · Founder, Bureau of Silly Ideas · April 2026
Blackstone — the private equity firm chaired and run by Stephen Schwarzman — is the world's largest alternative asset manager. Its decisions are data-driven. Like every major investor, it must report success on ESG — Environmental, Social, and Governance — a framework built to drive long-term value.
E and G are measured rigorously. Social doesn't make it to the spreadsheet. It's talked about. Gestured at. Left uncounted, so left out. This is - at best - lazy corporate ignorance.
Yet Stephen Schwarzman has pledged to give the majority of his fortune to education, culture and the arts.
His Giving Pledge letter reads:
"In philanthropy, as in business, I enjoy tackling complex challenges that require thoughtful, innovative solutions."
The giving is personal. But the machine that creates the wealth is ripping out the grassroots of the very culture the philanthropy celebrates. That is a complex challenge. We invite him to take it on — to count the S, and to invest in the grassroots that culture grows from.
Across the world, culture is being erased — not by malice, but by an incomplete spreadsheet. I'm asking artists and academics to boycott Schwarzman-named institutions until that changes.
Asset managers are required to report on ESG — but the S column stays empty. The data exists. Organisations like ours are required to collect it. The third sector trades in it. We know how to source it and collate it. The organisations being erased are the very ones that hold it.
The result is structural, not personal. A model that cannot see social value will always sacrifice it. We are ready to help Blackstone change that. But first, they need to stop demolishing the evidence base.
What this looks like on the ground
Bureau of Silly Ideas — BOSI — is a civic arts organisation that has occupied five railway arches in Brixton for twenty-four years. We hold Arts Council England NPO status. We deliver free cultural programming in one of London's most deprived areas. Our arches are owned by Arch Co, a Blackstone portfolio company.
In two meetings I convened — 28 January and 12 March 2026, chaired by the GLA's Culture at Risk team — Arch Co confirmed their portfolio rent target is £30–£35 per square foot. The GLA's Culture at Risk team stated: there isn't a cultural organisation in this city that can afford that level of rent. The minutes record what followed:
"There was an acknowledgment in the room that no cultural organisation would be able to afford the return required by Arch Co."
Formally minuted, 12 March 2026 — chaired by the GLA's Culture at Risk team.The next day we received notification that Arch Co had applied for planning permission to demolish our clubhouse — application 26/00491/FUL — describing it as derelict. It is not. The legal process to replace a centre for creation and joy with dark kitchens and last-mile delivery hubs has started. But it is contestable — and that's an ask. Tick the box on the pledge form if you'd like to help in the campaign to save the space.
Sixteen days after Blackstone moves to put nails in the coffin of grassroots culture in Brixton, its chairman opens a £185 million cultural centre at Oxford.
Pledge to decline invitations to perform at, participate in, or lend your name to Schwarzman-named venues — Oxford, Yale, MIT, the Frick, the New York Public Library — until Blackstone incorporates social value as a real input to its decision-making.
Your name and statement may be published publicly. Email kept private. No spam.
Thank you. Your pledge is recorded.
Read the full letter: Why I'm asking you to boycott Schwarzman →
Background — the full story: The Last Arches (PDF) →
Bureau of Silly Ideas, Company No. 4556803 · Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation · Arches 12, 14, 17 & 18 Valentia Place and Arch 555 Brixton Station Road, London SW9 · Planning ref: 26/00491/FUL, London Borough of Lambeth · planning@lambeth.gov.uk