Robert Wells, heir to the Fiesta Dinnerware collection (so embedded in the American consciousness it even became the topic of a recently produced off-Broadway play), has bequeathed $9 million to The Nature Conservancy. His attorney cited Wells's respect for the Conservancy's "wide footprint" after traveling to places like the Chilean coasts, New Zealand and Alaska.

Twenty percent of the gift is earmarked for local conservation efforts in Wells's home state of West Virgina, specifically in the Central Appalachian Mountains. The bulk of the bequest will go towards global programs on behalf of the nature-loving recreational fisherman. The first date he took his wife on in the early 1950s? A 4:30 am catfishing expedition. Carolyn Wells also left a significant gift to the Conservancy following her death in 2005.

Google.org recently announced its investment of over $10 million in "breakthrough geothermal energy" to further its goal to develop clean energy alternatives to coal. Functioning as the philanthropic arm of Google (effectively the 1% co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin initially pledged toward global concerns), Google.org has already donated or invested over $85 million across five focus areas which include renewable energy and the improvement of public services.

If you're into videos about geothermal energy, check out this one. It's all about drilling for energy in the Australian outback. You'll learn words and phrases such as "exajoules" and "distributed indigenous nature" -- just in time for your Labor Day cocktail parties!

Travel + Leisure has announced its collaboration with 18 prominent artists including Maya Lin, Manolo Blahnik and April Gornik, to create specially-commissioned pieces to be auctioned as part of its second annual Project Globe event. Following the auction, the magazine will donate all proceeds to Future Generations, a non-profit conservation and community development organization. The online auction starts today at tlprojectglobe.com, where bidders are swiftly staking their claims.

The diverse group of photographs, sculptures and jewelry, all of which aim to celebrate travel's positive impact, will be shown at GlassHouses in New York City on September 19 and 20. Photographs from the auctioned items will be featured in Travel + Leisure's October Style + Culture issue, on newsstands September 23. See the gallery for a selection of items at auction.

The Clinton Foundation has recently concluded its philanthropy tour of Africa, where the former President worked tirelessly to reduce treatment costs for malaria and spoke in support of public health efforts to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS among children. He also helped celebrate the opening of a $1 million, 180-bed hospital in Rwanda. The foundation's Travel to Africa Blog followed Clinton on his multiple stops throughout the continent between the end of July and August 6 and includes video of some of Clinton's speeches during his visit.

Bill Clinton established his eponymous foundation during his second term as President. The foundation has grown to support programs focused on combating climate change, HIV/AIDS and other health concerns and childhood obesity.

Saks Fifth Avenue along with the Entertainment Industry Foundation recently announced that Gwyneth Paltrow will act as the new ambassador for the 2008 Key to the Cure, a women's cancer initiative. Karl Lagerfeld has designed the exclusive tee for the cause, with all proceeds going to cancer research.

The weekend-long shopping event is slated for October 16 through October 19 at Saks stores nationwide and online at saks.com. Two percent of proceeds from the weekend's totals will be donated to the Women's Cancer Research Fund. Now in its 10th year, the annual Key to the Cure event has raised over $28 million for cancer research and treatment programs.

The Patterson Foundation in Sarasota, Florida has just announced it has received a bequest of $225 million from the estate of Dorothy Clarke Patterson, who died last year. The significant gift makes the Patterson Foundation the 19th largest grant-maker in the state of Florida and the largest in Sarasota.

In addition to the major gift, the former Longboat Key resident left no instructions for how she wanted the bequest managed, providing a unique opportunity for the foundation to chart its own course. In the past, the foundation Patterson founded with $3 million following her husband's death in 1997 has donated to Sarasota groups including Habitat for Humanity and a local high school and food bank. Newly appointed foundation head Debra Jacobs (at right) will certainly be hard at work defining the mission of one woman's unrestricted largesse.

Minnesota Mom Jill Youse started sending her own breast milk to Africa in 2006, soon after which she began helping other moms around the country do the same through her organization, the International Breast Milk Project (IBMP). In just the past couple of years IBMP has successfully shipped over 85,000 pounds of milk to infants in Africa, primarily babies fighting illnesses that often abate when breast milk is introduced. Youse set up a program for women who have suffered the loss of an infant through the Madison Cassady Program , so that grieving mothers who still had milk stored in their freezers didn't have to throw it all away. Also distributed in the U.S. to children born prematurely or whose mothers cannot produce milk, donations are made easy for moms. Coolers and the necessary equipment arrive shipped to their doors and are later picked up and sent to babies in need. Even FedEx has chipped in to provide transport for the mothers' milk. Recognized as one of "Earth's Mothers" by Oprah Winfrey a little over a year ago, Youse and IBMP are revolutionizing how new moms think about breastfeeding, convincing them to add a few more mouths along the way.

This past weekend I've been reading The Billionaire's Vinegar which touches on the wine collection of William Koch but it's his brother David who has been in the news most recently. David H. Koch who is said to be the wealthiest person in New York City has, according to the NY Times agreed to contribute $100 million toward the renovation of the New York State Theater. The gift will put Koch's name on the door and will also be the largest private capital donation in the Lincoln Center's history. Koch says that he has been going to the New York State Theater for 40 years (he's 68) and he was aware the theater needed modernization. As of this fall it will be known as the David H. Koch Theater making it the same big name change of a New York institution in four months for a $100 million gift. The New York Public Library will be naming its main building after the Wall Street financier Stephen A. Schwarzman in return for his donation.

Koch has an estimated net worth of $17 billion. He will donate the money over 10 years, paying the first $15 million payment this summer and then $10 million annual payment for eight years plus a final $5 million installment. The deal does specify that the theater could be renamed for a new donor after 50 years with the Koch family retaining the right of first refusal. Koch has said he believes that a naming opportunity should last for a specific amount of time so that an institution can later pursue another round of fundraising.

The Boston Beer Company has created a unique program to benefit low and moderate income microentrepreneurs seeking to make their fortune in the food and beverage industry. Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream will provide these entrepreneurs with the tools they need to help them grow and succeed. Boston Beer has partnered with Accion USA which is the country's leading not-for-profit micro-lending organization providing critical capital and other types of assistance to small businesses. Boston Beer has made an initial $250,000 commitment to establish the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Micro-Loan Fund at Accion to provide much needed capital for lower and moderate income microentrepreneurs whose businesses would not be approved for a bank loan. Accion USA business loans range from $500-$25,000.

Boston Beer also plans to develop and execute a series of business education and financial literacy seminars aimed at the educational needs of food and beverage entrepreneurs and offer microentrepreneurs access to the advice and expertise of Samuel Adams employees through regular events. Brewer and founder Jim Koch says he was driven to create this program because he was one of the "little guys" when he started Samuel Adams back in 1984. He's shown above handing a check to the first recipient of the program, Carlene O'Garro, a Boston baker who runs Delectable Desires, a dessert bakery and caterer.

Brad and Angelina's foundation, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, has donated over $1 million to children affected by the Iraq war both abroad and here in the U.S. With $500,000 for school supplies and education programs for refuge children in Iraq and $500,000 for American children who have either lost a parent in the Iraq war or have a parent currently serving in that country, they continue their philanthropic dedication to causes important to helping children in our world. Here in the U.S. those funds will be used to support YMCA tutoring programs under the Armed Forces YMCA Operation Hero initiative. Brad and Angelina gave over $8 million to their foundation in 2006 and it would appear that their giving in 2008 will continue on the same generous path.

Pratham USA was started in 1994 by UNICEF, with the goal to educate the children of India in the areas of reading writing and basic math. Based on the principal that children who attend school make more productive members of society and are less likely to fall into poverty, Pratham works by improving India's schools instead of replacing them or imposing new ways of life. Recently Google awarded a $2 million grant to Pratham to assist their efforts! Check out the amazing work this organization is doing here.

Paul Newman may have been known for years as an actor but certainly his Newman's Own salad dressing and philanthropic ways signify the way many know him today. Recently, Newman donated his portion of ownership in Newman's Own to support the charities connected to Newman's Own Foundation Inc. which totaled $120 million! One of the charities supported by this enormous gift is the Hole In The Wall Gang camps which take place in Africa providing impoverished children with summer programs each year. His trademark grin may be his most cherished look but I am sure the impression he leave on this world will be attributed to his big heart and significant gifts to those less fortunate.

Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy are hoping they can use their combined star power to help raise awareness this week for the Green Our Vaccines march and rally. Jenny's son Evan was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder in 2005, and Jenny has been trying to help him and others by raising awareness of the possible link between autism and childhood vaccinations. The actors have joined with other national autism advocacy groups to press for the elimination of toxins from children's vaccines and to change children's vaccination schedules. It's always a heated debate, with facts and studies being presented on both sides, but a growing number of parents of autistic children believe that vaccines, especially those containing the mercury-based preservatives, are to blame for bringing on their children's autistic symptoms. Learn more about this weeks fund raising efforts here, and if you want to get involved in this movement now is the time!

Could the Kavli prize someday have the same cachet as the Nobel prize? That's what industrialist Fred Kavli is hoping for. The 80-year-old multimillionaire has created what he believes will be the prize to win in the modern age. The Kavli Foundation rewards research in nanoscience, astrophysics and neuroscience, the three scientific fields he believes are most beneficial to the happiness and survival of the human race. Kavli's foundation has established research institutes at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and 12 other universities.

On Wednesday the first Kavli Prizes in Astrophysics, Nanoscience and Neuroscience were handed out to seven winners, from the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan and the US. Each will receive a scroll, medal and a share of the $1,000,000 prize for each subject. The astrophysics prize was awarded jointly to Maarten Schmidt, of the California Institute of Technology, US, and Donald Lynden-Bell, of Cambridge University, UK, both of whose work underpins our understanding of quasars. The nanoscience recipients are Louis E. Brus, of Columbia University, US, and Sumio Iijima, of Meijo University in Japan, who share the nanoscience prize for their respective discoveries of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, also known as quantum dots, and carbon nanotubes. The neuroscience prize went to three scientists who collectively have deciphered the basic mechanisms that govern the development and functioning of the networks of cells in the brain and spinal cord. Pasko Rakic, of the Yale University School of Medicine, in the US, explained how the neurons in the embryonic brain arrange themselves during development into the complex, densely interconnected circuitry of the adult cerebral cortex. Thomas Jessell, of Columbia University, US, has revealed the chemical signals behind the differentiation of early progenitor cells into the complex assembly of different types of neurons that make up neuronal circuits. Sten Grillner, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden showed how neural circuits in mammalian spinal cords generate motor commands for rhythmic movements such as locomotion. His lamprey model is seen as the first and so far only vertebrate neuronal system controlling an integrated function that is understood at a molecular and cellular level.

Kavli's company Kavlico, which developed sensors for military and civilian aircraft, the space shuttle and automobiles, was sold in 2000 for $345 million and currently his real estate holdings have an estimated value of about $300 million.

[via LA Times]

In the wake of tragedy the auction of a historically significant piece will come to the rescue. Providing huge funds for relief efforts after the earthquake that killed more than 65,000 people in China on May 12th, computer chip tycoon Robert Tsao auctioned a palm-size antique glass pot from the imperial Qing Dynasty raising over HK$65 million ($8.3 million). Half of the funds will go to earthquake relief efforts and the other half will be split between various other charities. Both Tsao and Christie's auction house have waived their commission fees as well. Quite the gesture and it is certainly much needed. Its nice to see luxury items making a difference too.