• 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]

• Senator Grassley considers legislation that would hold nonprofit hospitals more accountable for the billions of dollars in tax exemptions they enjoy.  [Wall Street Journal]

• The losses the Shapiro Foundation has sustained due to Madoff have Boston-area nonprofits on edge.  [Boston Globe]

• The Broad Foundation donates $25 million to UC San Francisco for stem cell research.  [Los Angeles Times]

• Outraged philanthropists worldwide reel from Madoff scam.  [Reuters]

• Bill Clinton's foundation has raised at least $46 million from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments that his wife may end up negotiating with as the next secretary of state.  [Associated Press]

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation releases a provocative ad on the Internet.  [Boston Globe]

Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago sticks to its nonprofit mission by providing all patients the same standards of care, but struggles financially as a result.  [Wall Street Journal]

• Clara Miller, President and Chief Executive of Nonprofit Finance Fund, urges nonprofits to tame their impulses to do more in the current economy.  [Financial Times]

• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announces $70 million in grants as part of an ambitious initiative to double the number of low-income students who earn a college degree by age 26.  [New York Times]

• China considers sending food and other aid to Zimbabwe.  [Associated Press]

• The Gates Foundation ensures media coverage of global health issues by supporting news organizations.  [New York Times]

• As families face difficulties in sending their children to college, the pay increases for chief executives at universities is raising concern.  [Washington Post]

• University of Texas to lay off 3,800 people from the medical center in Galveston Island.  [New York Times]

• As much as people might like to sit still until their finances feel stable again, many nonprofits need support now.  [New York Times]

• A former official of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation led a false invoicing scheme that resulted in the theft of more than $1 million from the organization.  [New York Times]

• The former director of a Brooklyn nonprofit is arrested on charges that he stole more than $500,000 in federal aid.  [New York Times]

• A Winchester man reaches a deal with Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley Battlesfield Foundation to sell some of his family's land.  [Washington Post]

• An U.S. aid worker is shot and killed in Pakistan.  [San Jose Mercury News]

• The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center plans on opening and running 25 oncology centers abroad over the next decade in partnership with GE Healthcare.  [New York Times]

• A group of civil rights attorneys file a federal lawsuit claiming racial discrimination by the Louisiana Road Home program.  [Associated Press]

• The Bush administration cracks down on the Union of Good, an Islamic charity suspected of bankrolling Hamas.  [Associated Press]

• When funding comes with strings attached, a nonprofit's ability to invest in staff training, improved IT, and other infrastructure systems is compromised.  [Financial Times]

• Gates urges rich world governments to not cut health aid to the developing world.  [Reuters]

• Six French aid workers are kidnapped in Somalia.  [Associated Press]

• The New York City Ballet shortens its summer season.  [New York Times]

• The government of Zimbabwe fails to return $7.3 million that was missued to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.  [New York Times]

• Donor-advised funds can continue to give money to charities from earnings on the investments.  [Bloomberg]

• The American Lung Association dissolves its Northwest affiliate.  [Associated Press]

• Spending in 2009 by some of the country's largest foundations is likely to be flat as the companies behind them weather the global financial crisis.  [Reuters]

• Starbuck announces a partnership with Bono's (RED) label, donating a portion of selected holiday drinks to the Global Fund.  [Associated Press]

• The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission votes to approve the hardship application of St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan.  [New York Times]