Britain

December 29, 2009, Philanthropy News Digest — Hit by the global recession and falling donations, international aid agencies have been forced to scale back operations during 2009 and are facing the possibility of having to take more extreme measures in 2010, Reuters AlertNet reports.

November 10, 2009, The New York Times — Mona Webster, a lighthouse keeper’s daughter who lived in Edinburgh and died in August at 96, had a love of birds, and warblers in particular — of the human kind. She demonstrated that affection by leaving most of her fortune to the Metropolitan Opera and a nature charity in Britain.

LONDON, September 8, 2009, The New York Times — Freya Hogan would love to return to her school in Ashford, near London, this month after her summer break, but Freya, 16, and about 240 fellow students from St. David’s School for girls have been forced to find another school.

April 26, 2009, The Sunday Times — EVERYBODY in Britain should give some of their time or their money to charity as a routine part of life, according to the "ambassador" appointed by Gordon Brown to promote philanthropy.

Charities and voluntary organisations are experiencing a damaging drop in funding at a time when the increasingly volatile economic situation will create a greater need for charitable work, a series of gloomy reports have warned.

Twitter has been co-opted by celebrities and companies like Starbucks and Bank of America. Now, the San Francisco-based service, which allows people to post updates, or “tweets,” up to 140 characters in length, is being adopted to organize an global fund-raising event called Twestival.