NEWS FROM NPOs ELSEWHERE

Debt-ridden Chinese property developer Evergrande will not deliver on its $115 million pledge to fund a Harvard University-led Covid research effort. Evergrande was to give $57.5 million each to Harvard and Chinese scientists over five years, but the company is buried under $300 billion in liabilities and is struggling to deliver on that and previous promises. Harvard received $12 million in Covid funds from Evergrande in 2020, before the money dried up. The engagement spurred the creation of the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, made up of “hundreds of experts from universities, hospitals, the biopharmaceutical industry and other institutions” across Massachusetts. The effort and fundraising for this will continue. Harvard Medical School Dean George Daley said he will “soon announce an additional $8.5 million in scholarships for 35 to 40 projects at 11 partner institutions.” Previously, Evergrande funded the establishment of three centers at Harvard but did not always send out its grants on time. (Boston Globe)

A new project to preserve historic African-American churches has received $20 million in seed funding from the Lilly Endowment. In addition to physical preservation, the Preserving Black Churches project will help churches manage their assets and “tell their own stories,” according to Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, which will lead the project. The money will help more than 50 churches over three years, including those with dwindling congregations or those that have been converted to community centers or treatment programs. The first recipient of its emergency funds will be St. James AME Church in Mayfield., Ky., which will receive $100,000 to help it recover from a devastating tornado last month. The National Trust for Historic Preservation launched the action fund, which has raised more than $70 million, after clashes between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. (Associated Press)

No more news

• The hostages escaped. But synagogues ask, how can they be safer? (New York Times)
• Fact Focus: Posts mislead about nonprofit vaccine rules (Associated Press)
• Penn Alum is donating $18 million to support first-generation college students (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• ‘A steep slope ahead of us’, as nonprofit hiring slows, Omicron has increased demand for services (Houston Chronicle)
• Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu made $660,000 in 2 years through his non-profit organization Racial-Justice (NOLA.com)

arts and culture

• Seattle Symphony debacle: Inside Thomas Dausgaard’s sudden departure (Post Alley)
• Breaking up the lawsuit against the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (Dance Magazine)
• Employees of the Jewish Museum of New York vote to unionize (Art Newspaper)