Philanthropy

In the 16 years since his release from prison, disgraced junk-bond king Michael Milken has beaten prostate cancer, raised hundreds of millions of dollars for medical research and reshaped an image tarnished by a 1990 conviction for securities fraud. One thing he's been unable to do is win a presidential pardon, despite the support of some of the country's most influential people. Before he left office Jan.

Phil Keoghan, he of the arched eyebrow and host of Emmy Award-winning "The Amazing Race," is a self-acknowledged creature of extremes. For his day job, the 41-year-old New Zealand native logs more than 400,000 air miles per year, mostly as he crisscrosses the globe with the CBS show's $1-million prize and adventure-hungry contestants. But that's nothing really.

For many years, Andre Agassi stole the show at the U.S. Open. Now, three years out of the tennis game, he's doing it in coat and tie. Monday was opening day. They played 56 matches. Defending champions Roger Federer and Serena Williams won handily. There was drama on the back courts, great play on the grandstand, exceptional effort everywhere. And then, Monday night, the bald guy from Las Vegas walked to the microphone and one-upped everything. He was there as part of a ceremony honoring "athletes who have given back."

Arts and education philanthropist Eli Broad today will announce his largest investment to date in Los Angeles charter schools, $23.3 million to jump-start at least 17 new campuses run by two major charter-school organizations. Broad's gift is believed to be the largest by any private donor to local charter schools and underscores his goal of creating effective schools outside the direct jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Unified School District. L.A.

Developer and philanthropist Donald Bren on Tuesday reached beyond the Orange County communities he helped build and define, announcing an $8.5-million donation to benefit after-school programs in Santa Ana and east Los Angeles County. The gift will bolster Santa Ana-based THINK Together, an after-school program that extends the school day for children who need extra coaching with classwork or homework help, often because their parents are working or lack English skills.

The Los Angeles Free Clinic will change its name next month to the Saban Free Clinic in honor of a $10-million donation, the largest in the clinic's 41-year history, from philanthropists Haim and Cheryl Saban. The gift, which the clinic plans to announce today, will be used to create an endowment, said clinic co-director Abbe Land.

The news hit Opera Santa Barbara like Wagnerian thunder: An anonymous donor had pledged $5 million -- the largest gift in the group's 14-year history. The windfall, announced in February, will finance an annual production by one of the donor's six favorite composers. In an operatic flourish, the benefactor's name will be unveiled only after his or her death -- on programs for productions made possible by the bequest.

It's not everybody's favorite spot on the USC campus, but to Verna B. Dauterive the basement of Doheny Memorial Library remains a beloved landmark where her life changed. There, in 1947, she was doing homework for her master's degree in education when another student struck up a conversation. He was Peter W. Dauterive, a former soldier who was getting his business degree on a GI Bill and one of the few fellow African American students at USC in those days.

For years, the boxy office building housing the Chinese Consulate on Shatto Place in Koreatown maintained a low profile. Its only major brush with the news came nearly two decades ago after the Tiananmen crackdown prompted Chinese Americans to hold protests there. But after this month's deadly Sichuan earthquake, the consulate has emerged as an unlikely galvanizing force for Southern California's thriving ethnic Chinese community.

An anonymous donor has given the Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles $9 million to support its Dance Institute. The donation is the largest single gift to the school after Richard Colburn's founding endowment of $20 million and will be added to the Dance Institute's $1-million endowment, bringing the total to $10 million.