News Briefing: Knight Foundation Spreads Random Acts of Culture

• The Knight Foundation spreads random acts of culture.  [New York Times]

 

• Slate lists the largest American charitable contributions in 2010.  [Slate]

 

• Private philanthropists push for change in Catholic schools.  [New York Times]

News Briefing: Tom White, a Great Boston Philanthropist, Dies at the Age of 90.

• Tom White, one of Boston’s greatest philanthropists, dies at the age of 90.  [Boston Globe]

 

• Feed the Children cuts ties with co-founder Frances Jones.  [The Oklahoman]

News Briefing: Charity begins at the ATM: UK seeks more donations

People will be asked to give to charity every time they use a cash dispenser or pay with a bank card under government plans to increase philanthropy in Britain. [The Washington Post]

Charities Optimistic After Year of Lackluster Giving [NPR]

News Briefing: Group Is Accused on Tax Exemption

• The Americans for Prosperity Foundation is charged with running advertisements that are "political in nature."  [New York Times]

• A U.S. aid worker kidnapped four months ago in Sudan has been freed by authorities.  [Associated Press]

• The humanitarian leader Abdul Sattar Edhi has been helping the destitute and sick for more than 60 years.  [Associated Press]

• Billionaire fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller plans to shut down his hedge fund and spend more time on philanthropy.  [Bloomberg]

News Briefing: Young Lawyers Turn to Public Service

• Young lawyers who were offered  a deferral stipend by their law firms are now choosing to stay in the public sector where they spent their year.  [New York Times]

• Negotiations to open an urgent-care center in the shuttered emergency room at St. Vincent's Hospital have been stalled by a dispute over financial terms and demands that birth control not be made available.  [New York Times]

• Leona Helmsley's trust makes a $25 million grant to Mount Sinai's Medical Center to create the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust Cardiovascular Translational Research Center.  [Wall Street Journal]

• The United Nation meets its target of $460 million in immediate aid for flood-stricken Pakistan.  [Associated Press]

News Briefing: U.N. Sounds Alarm on Aid for Pakistan

• So far, about 40 billionaires have accepted the Giving Pledge challenge - with some notable exceptions.  [San Francisco Chronicle]

• Aid organizations and the U.N. express alarm that the response for aid in Pakistan has been slow.  [New York Times]

• Pakistani officials acknowledge that the country's security could be gravely affected if more international aid does not arrive soon.  [Washington Post]

• The Obama administration offers $250 million in federal grants to build health clinics and bolster services at existing clinics for low-income patients.  [Washington Post]

News Briefing: Pledging Fortunes Takes Extra Effort in Shaky Recovery

• Some wealthy donors grow leery of long-term philanthropic promises.  [New York Times]

• Drew University's new nursing school opens under a financial cloud.  [Los Angeles Times]

• Tony Blair donates earnings from his forthcoming memoir to a charity for injured troops.  [Associated Press]

News Briefing: Rebuilding New Orleans

• Leonard Riggio, the founder and chairman of Barnes & Noble, and his wife, Louise, will build their 50th home this August for New Orleans families who lost their homes after Hurricane Katrina.  [Wall Street Journal]

• Paul Allen takes his friend Bill Gates up on his challenge to publicly pledge the majority of his wealth to philanthropy.  [Seattle Times]

• The Hasan Family Foundation, which paid Scott McInnis $300,000 for water essays, wants its money back.  [Associated Press]

News Briefing: Edward Norton Launches Charity Fund-Raising Website

• Billionaire David Koch encourages fellow philanthropists to include expiration dates on their naming rights so that these rights can be resold in the future.  [Wall Street Journal]

• To date, over $1.1 billion has been donated to Haiti earthquake relief.  [USA Today]

• Edward Norton launches a charity fundraising website.  [Reuters]

• Afghanistan's government dissolves 20 international aid organizations.  [Associated Foreign Press]

News Briefing: At Front Lines, AIDS War Is Falling Apart

• In  Uganda, where fewer than 10,000 were on AIDS drugs a decade ago, nearly 200,000 now are, largely a result of American generosity.  [New York Times]

• A philanthropy class at the University of Maryland teaches students how to give money away wisely. [Washington Post]

• Cerberus Capital Management, the private-equity firm proposing to purchase Boston's six Catholic hospitals, intends to maintain the hospitals' religious identity, but has also negotiated an escape clause that would allow the firm to end the religious affiliation in exchange for a $25 million donation to charity.  [Boston Globe]

• Emily Fisher Landau, a New York philanthropist, pledges 367 works of art to the Whitney Museum of American Art.  [New York Times]