• Across New York, public employees turn down their raises and bonuses, citing the economic plight of fellow community members.  [New York Times]

• An upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation as Hillary Rodham Clinton pushed bills to help his mall project.  [New York Times]

• Christmas wishes, posted online, are granted by a stranger.  [New York Times]

• Employees at nonprofit and educational organizations may face fewer investment choices and more restrictions on how they can use their retirement money because of new IRS rules.  [Associated Press]

• California philanthropic foundations and think tanks are shedding their traditionally detached stances to crusade for healthcare reform.  [Los Angeles Times]

• The Knight Foundation donates $25 million to the Newseum, a museum dedicated to the history of news that opens next month in D.C.  [Washington Post]

• With layoffs and cutbacks rippling through financial markets, charities brace for a slump in donations.  [Reuters]

• Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen donates $5 million to the fight against tuberculosis.  [Seattle Times]

• Earmarks for religious organizations have increased sharply in recent years.  [New York Times]

• Gates Foundation to donate $7.1M for Gulf Coast Housing.  [Associated Press]

San Francisco Chronicle:  San Francisco philanthropist Richard Goldman is giving the San Francisco Symphony a $10 million challenge grant aimed at increasing the company's current $180 million endowment, which provides much-needed income to keep the music playing.

Boston Globe:  An anonymous donor impressed with Concord's history of community service has set aside $1.4 million to help five public and private schools in town mold a new generation of philanthropists.

Associated Press:  When former emergency room doctor Bill Thomas took a part-time job at a nursing home, he didn't know he was taking the first step toward creating an international nonprofit organization that could revolutionize eldercare.

New York Times:  The Starr Foundation, one of the country’s largest philanthropies, pledged $100 million yesterday to cancer research involving collaboration among four institutions in New York and one in Massachusetts.

New York Times:  A Sheraton hotel in Midtown Manhattan was the scene of feverish matchmaking over the past three days during Bill Clinton’s second annual gathering on global problems.

Washington Post:  The Bush administration's faith-based initiative is reaching only a tiny percentage of the nation's black churches, most of which have limited capacity to run social programs, hampering the initiative's promise of empowering those congregations to help the needy, according to a study to be released today.

Slate:  Google.org has accomplished in one week what it took its parent company years to accomplish: It has already stolen market share from Bill Gates. As the New York Times reported last week, Google will commit $1 billion to a for-profit philanthropic operation that will do everything from back startup companies to lobby legislatures. Among its first projects: helping to build a superefficient ethanol-gasoline-electric car engine.