Article on Pittsburgh Foundations (Penn: estimated, money, parks)

[BrianTH]

I thought this was an interesting overview of charitable foundations in Pittsburgh:

The Associated Press: Foundations' money sparks Pittsburgh's recovery

A small taste:

In Pennsylvania, more than a quarter of the 4,109 foundations and more than a third of their $28.7 billion in assets are in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has more philanthropies than some states — including Oklahama, Louisiana and Alabama. The region of seven counties and about 2.4 million people had about $10.9 billion in philanthropic assets in 2006 — nearly $4,600 per capita _far more than other Rust Belt cities, including Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati.

"There are few communities across the country that have those resources that Pittsburgh has," said Matthew Nelson, a vice president at the Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit, Council on Foundations.

Curious, I looked around and found this source claiming there were $614.7 billion in total foundation assets in the United States in 2006:

http://foundationcenter.org/gainknow...pdf/fgge08.pdf

There were an estimated 298 million people in the U.S. in 2006, so that works out to a ratio of about $2063 per capita--so that around $4600 per capita in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area does indeed seem like a very favorable ratio.

[AaronClark]

I saw this article in my google news reader....it was really good! Forgot to post it around.