Charitable Foundations See Endowments Drop

The endowments of the group of foundations, which focus on education reform, scientific and medical research and the arts, dropped from a total of $2.5 billion in January 2008, to $2.1 billion in January 2009, said spokeswoman Karen Denne.

She said they're optimistic that the markets will continue to improve, but it likely will take several years for the endowments to recover what they lost in 2008.