The Annenberg Foundation has offered $2.5-million toward relocation costs for an elementary school near the site of the West Virginia coal-mine disaster, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Officials at Marsh Fork Elementary School and local leaders have raised health and environmental concerns about the school's proximity to a Massey Energy Company coal-preparation plant. The school is located 300 feet from the plant and a few miles from the Massey mine where 29 workers died in a recent accident.

A Washington charity coalition formed to give companies an alternative to the United Way for workplace campaigns exceeded its first year fund-raising goal, according to The Washington Post.

Community 1st-America's Charities of Greater Washington said it took in $2.6-million in 2009 after setting out to raise $2-million to $2.5-million. The 25 participating nonprofit groups opted out of the United Way following financial scandals that rocked the larger alliance's national and Washington-area chapters.

The United Way of the National Capital Area raised an estimated $32-million to $33-million last year, down 4 to 5 percent from 2008. Chapter President Bill Hanbury attributed the drop to the weak economy rather than competition from Community 1st. 

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Speakers' remarks at the recent Council on Foundations conference that ended Tuesday, exhibited a trend among foundation leaders to shift charitable organizations' missions from public service to political activism, writes Anthony Paletta, an editor at the Manhattan Institute's Center for the American University, in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Paletta cites the speeches of Valerie Jarrett, an adviser to President Obama and the head of the White Office of Public Engagement, and those of numerous foundation leaders at the conference as a sign that foundations are turning away from supporting programs to help those in need and enrich society toward a kind of political activism that Mr. Paletta finds worrisome and dangerous.

The former head of New York-based Muslim charity suspected by federal investigators of acting as a front for Iran's government was sentenced Thursday to three months in prison for destroying evidence related to the probe, Bloomberg says.

Farshid Jahedi, ex-president of the Alavi Foundation, pleaded guilty in December to destroying documents and obstruction of justice. Mr. Jahedi acknowledged trashing typed and handwritten notes he knew concerned financial transactions a grand jury was probing.

The government has moved to seize foundation property it claims was co-owned by a bank controlled by the Iranian government.

The philanthropic arm of the investment firm Blackstone Group kicked off a five-year, $50-million program to help entrepreneurs with a $2-million grant to two Detroit colleges, reports Bloomberg.

Wayne State University and Walsh College will use the money from the Blackstone Charitable Foundation's LaunchPad campaign for mentorship and business-plan programs to help 20 small companies get off the ground each year.

Inspired by the spectacular new fountains outside Lincoln Center, the billionaire businessman David H. Koch has promised to spend $10-million or more to renovate the Metropolitan Museum of Art's front entrance, says The Wall Street Journal.

The project will include a remake of the two currently dormant fountains outside the Met, an upgrade of exterior lighting, and a refurbished entrance plaza. Mr. Koch said he approached the Met's president, Emily Rafferty, with the idea after seeing the "choreographed" water effects at the Lincoln Center fountain, which opened last fall.

In other arts news, Irene Lewis, the artistic director of Baltimore's Center Stage since 1991, said she has been asked to leave the post, The Baltimore Sun writes.

Jay Smith, president of the board of Baltimore's largest regional theater, confirmed that Ms. Lewis's contract would not be renewed after...

Convio, a major supplier of fund-raising software and services to nonprofit groups, took in $46.2-million with its initial public offering Thursday, Bloomberg reports.

The Austin, Tex., firm sold about 5.1 million shares after initially trading at a lower-than-expected price of $9 per share.

The University of Oxford has announced it has raised $100-million in the past year for its James Martin 21st Century School, thanks to a $50-million challenge grant from its founder, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

James Martin, a British technology giant, graduated from Oxford’s Keble College in 1955 and established the 21st Century School in 2005.

When he announced the matching grant last year, he said that most people told him that, given the state of the economy, he would never get enough donors to give.

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A survivor of the Haitian earthquake who visited the country’s tent cities has made a video, which ran on YouTube, about his efforts to figure out how the American Red Cross spent the $430-million it raised for the disaster, says the Miami Herald.

The Red Cross says it has spent roughly $106-million, but when the man, Fred Sajous, visited a tent city across the street from the American Red Cross’s Pétionville headquarters, people there said they had not received anything from the charity. Mr. Sajous went to other settlements but says he couldn’t find that the money had been spent.

Gail J. McGovern, president of the American Red Cross, appeared in an Internet video last week to counter Mr. Sajous's claims.

The organization says it has spent about a quarter of the money it raised after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake left 1.3 million people homeless. Red Cross officials say that figure in...

After a two-year search, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, in New York, announced yesterday that it had named Robert Battle to take over as artistic director when Judith Jamison retires next year, says The New York Times.

Mr. Battle is a choreographer who has worked with the company for many years and was a dancer with Parsons Dance, in New York. 

Ms. Jamison, an iconic American dance figure who became director of the company in late 1989 after it’s founder, Alvin Ailey, died, is scheduled to retire in June 2011. Under her leadership, the organization’s budget quadrupled. Starting this July, Mr. Battle and Ms. Jamison will work together in what they hope will be a smooth transition.

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