Microsoft Corp.

Sage North America announced it has entered into an exclusive referral relationship with Cambridge, Mass.-based ACCESS International to provide its Sage Rainbow customers with a migration path to ACCESS’ ENTERPRISE^®CRM software and services. Sage Rainbow is Sage’s fundraising management and development software for nonprofits, mostly United Way organizations. ACCESS is a leading software and service provider to United Way.

Facebook is forming a political action committee, strengthening ties of the social networking giant with Washington politicians as the company also faces growing questions about how it handles users’ privacy. Facebook’s PAC “will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,” spokesman Andrew Noyes said in a e-mailed statement.

The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), an international nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring young people from low-income communities to stay in school and to recognize business opportunities, announced its World Series of Innovation, presented by Microsoft, was selected as a featured event for the 2011 Global Entrepreneurship Week from Nov. 14-20.

Jeff Bezos, the self-made billionaire who started Amazon.com out of a Bellevue, Wash., garage and built it into the world's dominant online retailer over the past two decades, has given $10 million to the Museum of History & Industry to establish a "Center for Innovation" at MOHAI's new location on South Lake Union.

The gift is the largest in the museum's 59-year history. It also is the most visible sign yet of personal giving by Bezos, who is better known for spending money on space exploration and other business investments than on local philanthropic activities.

WealthEngine, provider of sophisticated prospect research tools and analytics, and StratusLIVE, provider of constituent relationship management (CRM) software built on the Microsoft® Dynamics™ CRM 2011 platform, announced the formation of a strategic relationship to integrate WealthEngine data seamlessly into StratusLIVE.

StratusLIVE works with leading charitable organizations including affiliates of the United Way and YMCA to provide them with the tools to identify key constituents and actively cultivate those relationships over time.

The Direct Marketing Educational Foundation announced the winners of the 2011 DMEF Collegiate ECHO Direct/Interactive Marketing Challenge, whose content was provided by charity: water, an international nonprofit that provides clean drinking water to communities worldwide that are deprived of access.

The winners of the DMEF’s 2011 Collegiate ECHO Challenge are:

• Gold (1st place)/Undergraduate: Christopher Newport University
• Gold (1st place)/Graduate: Eastern Michigan University

• Silver (2nd place)/Undergraduate: Oklahoma State University
• Silver (2nd place)/Graduate: Eastern Michigan University

• Bronze (3rd Place)/Undergraduate: Indiana University- South Bend
• Bronze (3rd Place)/Graduate: CUNY Baruch College

Microsoft Corp. announced updates to its software donation program that make it easier for nonprofit organizations to get access to affordable technology. The program, which has already provided more than $3.9 billion worth of software to nonprofits around the world since 1998, is being expanded to enable more nonprofit organizations to request software donations when they need them at any point in the year.

Nonprofit groups in the 13 Appalachian states can share a $2 million software donation from Microsoft Corp. aimed at training the region's work force to compete in an economy driven by knowledge and technology.

The Appalachian Regional Commission announced Microsoft's second economic-development donation to the region in six years Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Senators from two states that have already received grants, West Virginia and Mississippi, were on hand for the event.

ElizaJ, providers of upscale, self-contained restrooms for special events, has recently announced a new “Fundraising Division” geared towards helping nonprofits and other organizations meet their fundraising goals through successful events.

More than $4.3 billion was pledged by major public and private donors at a conference in London on Monday to aid projects vaccinating children in developing countries. The conference — co-hosted by the British Government and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) — had hoped to raise $3.7 billion.

Donors included corporations, philanthropists like Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and governments donating to GAVI for the first time, including Japan and Brazil.