College and university endowments made gains in the fiscal year that ended in June, but many are still struggling to make up ground they lost in 2008 and 2009, according to a report released Tuesday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP91383688855b48abb7e7614c93ec8c77.html

The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) and The Conference Board are joining forces to promote one survey to capture the full scope and scale of annual contributions by leading global companies. CECP, now in association with The Conference Board, produces an annual benchmarking report, Giving in Numbers, which is corporate philanthropy's premier report focusing on giving and is a resource to assess the trends in corporate initiatives.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/corporate-benchmarking-leaders-coming-together-to-strengthen-annual-reporting-of-giving-trends-2012-01-27

A new survey from the Brookings Institution ranks the world's 200 largest metropolitan economies -- which account for half of global GDP -- from 1-200. And the winners are...

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/the-10-fastest-growing-and-fastest-declining-cities-in-the-world/251602/

At this point, the people who run America’s private-equity funds must be ruing the day Mitt Romney decided to run for President. His fellow Republican candidates, of all people, have painted a vivid picture of private-equity firmsundefinedincluding Bain Capital, where he worked for fifteen yearsundefinedas job-destroying vultures, who scavenge the meat from American companies and leave their carcasses by the side of the road. Not since the days of “Wall Street” and “Barbarians at the Gate” have the masters of leveraged buyouts looked quite so bad.

State funding for higher education has been on the decline, in part because of a slow recovery from the recession. Below is a state-by-state breakdown of the percentage change in state higher education funding from fiscal year 2011 to 2012, not including federal stimulus money.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/a-state-by-state-breakdown-of-the-change-in-higher-education-funding/2012/01/23/gIQAnBETKQ_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop

This first-ever ranking of Indian CEOs, based on the long-term shareholder returns they generate, builds on Morten Hansen, Herminia Ibarra and Urs Peyer's pioneering article in the January 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review, or HBR, which ranked 1,999 corporate leaders from 1,205 global companies on the shareholder performance they delivered over the course of their tenure.

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/india-best-ceos-chairman-business-today-ranking-ambani-mittal/1/21585.html

Forbes China, the licensed Chinese-language edition of Forbes, is out with its latest list of China’s best small businesses. For this first time, this year’s “Forbes China Up-and-Comers List” includes separate rankings for 100 listed and unlisted companies.  The lists are based on Forbes Asia’s “Best Under A Billion List.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2012/01/23/forbes-china-unveils-ranking-of-chinas-best-small-businesses/

Imagine a future when government support of the charitable sector is cut in half. Even though some 35 percent of nonprofits indicated that government funding had increased this past year, 38 percent spoke of a decrease while 91 percent agreed with the statement, “federal cuts will cause significant problems for our organization as we seek to fund our mission.” These are among the results of a survey by the Bridgespan Group with offices in Boston, New York and San Francisco, called “The View from the Cliff: Government-Funded Nonprofits Are Looking Out on Steep Cuts and an Uncertain Future.”

http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/article/detail/survey-prepare-for-50-percent-cut-in-gov-t-income-4332

Davos is often criticized as a cabal of the global elite. But maybe it’s time they got some populist credit: Only 70 of the 2,500 attendees are actual billionaires. The rest are merely powerful or millionaires.

According to an article by Matt Miller of Bloomberg, the U.S. is sending the largest contingent of billionaires, with 20. The roster includes hedge-funders Steve Cohen, Ray Dalio, and George Soros.

blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2012/01/25/the-70-billionaires-at-davos/

Charity alone will not solve the world’s problems. Capitalism can help and at the same time put people back to work. There has always been a gap between what the government can provide and what the private sector can produce, a gap charities have long helped to fill. But as our world and economies evolve, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to reconsider how to fill this gap – to rethink the relationship between economic and social challenges, so that benefits and opportunities are available to more people.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/544c317a-42a2-11e1-93ea-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1kfAzG73i