News Briefing: Pittsburgh Foundation Receives $50M Gift

• The Pittsburgh Foundation receives $50M from a savvy and unassuming investor.  [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

• The National Park Service announces 17 fee-free days in an effort to promote budget-friendly getaways.  [Washington Post]

• The Otis Booth Foundation donates $13 million to the Los Angeles County's Natural History Museum.  [Los Angeles Times]

News Briefing: Paul Allen Grants Go Where Few Have Gone Before

• The Gates Foundation announces a $500 million commitment over five years to programs that enable poor people in developing countries to save money.  [USA Today]

 

• Paul Allen gives $9.4 million in grants to seven research teams.  [Seattle Times]

 

• Drexel University announces a $45 million gift to its business school from alumnus Bennett S. LeBow.  [Philadelphia Inquirer]

News Briefing: Grant to Help Restore Bumblebee Habitat Near Farms

• The Natural Resources Conservation Service gives grant to restore bumblee habitat near farms.  [Associated Press]

• The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation announces plans to distribute $100 million in each of the next two years to nonprofits in the U.S. and Israel.  [Baltimore Sun]

• The Gates Foundation announces $6.5 million in grants to help public libraries in 11 states improve the quality of the free computer access they offer.  [Associated Press]

News Briefing: Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe

• Texas adopts a law that bars trustees from moving a trust or foundation out of Texas without court approval.  [New York Times]

• Scientists turn to private foundations to fund more speculative research.  [New York Times]

• Microsoft veterans launch two separate Seattle nonprofits aimed at encouraging a new generation of philanthropists by using mobile phone and social networking.  [Seattle Times]

• The government's economic stimulus package sets aside $2.5 billion for free and low-cost health clinics.  [Associated Press]

News Briefing: $125 Million Is Pledged to Big Medical Center

• Charles Feeney, a leading proponent of giving away one's wealth while living, donates $125 million to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center.  [New York Times]

• Prince William becomes a royal patron of a charity his mother was once associated with.  [Associated Press]

• Sergey Brin, the billionaire co-founder of Google, plans to contribute money and his DNA to a vast Parkinson's Study.  [New York Times]

News Briefing: Georgetown Dean to Lead Philanthropic MacArthur Foundation

• Georgetown's Dean of the School of Foreign Service will become the new president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  [Washington Post]

• The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation hails President Obama's decision to lift federal funding limits for embryonic stem cell research.  [Associated Foreign Press]

News Briefing: Big Players Scale Back Charitable Donations

• Some of the country's universities try to sell pieces of their portfolios privately.  [New York Times]

• A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented thousands of deaths if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients.  [New York Times]

• Nearly 100,000 people in eastern Congo receive aid from the U.N. Children's Fund.  [Associated Press]

• Roger Clemens is asked to end his involvement with a charity golf tournament as his reputation continues to suffer from the Mitchell Report.  [Associated Press]

• Even the titans of philanthropy - including the Gates Foundation, David Koch, and Sheldon Adelson - are rattled by current economic conditions.  [Wall Street Journal]