Change afoot for Wachovia philanthropy: Philanthropy Journal (9/30)
The buy-out of Wachovia will create changes to its charitable giving program. Wachovia gave $129 million to nonprofits last year through its corporate-giving program and its foundation. And for the moment, Wachovia’s relationships with grantees are unchanged, says Angela English, the bank’s communications manager for community relations. “The Wachovia Foundation will continue to honor its commitments to community partners and organizations,” she says.

Education reform calls for attention to arts: Rocky Mountain News (10/7)
Seventy-five percent of principals say the arts are being squeezed by the need for teachers to focus on reading, writing and math. A report by the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Council on the Arts shows that art is offered at 93 percent of elementary schools, 86 percent of middle schools and 83 percent of high schools.

Corporate Donors Turning to ‘Strategic Philanthropy’: Philanthropy News Digest (10/5)
Corporate donors are increasingly choosing to give to projects in which they can be actively involved and that align strategically with components of their business, the Financial Times reports. The approach, sometimes referred to as “strategic philanthropy,” is gathering momentum along with the idea of “philanthrocapitalism,” which holds that charitable giving should be seen as an investment.

Report: State and Local Spending on Nonprofits’ Services 
Heads Downward: The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy (10/7)
State and local government spending 
on social welfare programs that are often provided by faith-based and community nonprofits could decline 
in the next several years to levels not seen since the mid-1990s, according to a recent report from the Nelson
A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. The report, “The New Retrenchment: Social Welfare Spending, 1977-
2006,” found that state and local government spending on social welfare programs dropped between 2005 and 
2006, the first such yearly decline in 23 years, after adjusting for inflation and the number of people living in 
poverty.

Generational Gains in Postsecondary Education Have Stalled, Report Finds: Philanthropy News Digest (10/10)
The percentage of young adults in the United States attaining higher levels of education than previous generations has fallen for many minorities and has stalled for young adults overall, a new report from the American Council on Education finds.
Funded by the GE Foundation, the Minorities in Higher Education  2008 Twenty-Third Status Report found that in 2006, the overall percentage of young adults between the ages of 25 and 29 and adults age 30 and older with at least an associate’s degree was about the same (35 percent). For Hispanics and Native Americans, however, young adults had less education than previous generations, with 16 percent of young Hispanics and 18 percent of young Native Americans having at least an associate’s degree, compared with 18 percent and 21 percent, respectively, of older Hispanics and Native Americans.
College enrollment varies across ethnicities. In 2006, 61 percent of Asian Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled in college, compared with 44 percent of whites, 32 percent of African Americans, and 25 percent of Hispanics and Native Americans.