Celebrities

For 99.9 percent of the players in the NBA, July 1, 2011 is circled on their calendars as the start of a potential lockout if the player's union and the league's owners can't come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement before the current one expires on June 30. For Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest, July 1 marks the day he will announce just how much of his 2011-12 salary he will donate to charities to benefit mental health awareness.

In unique partnership with the website JustGive, Matthews is letting fans direct the proceeds of two upcoming Seattle shows to the charities of their choice. Every ticket is matched with an equal donation to philanthropy.

"The point is the act of giving and making the process available," he said in an interview. "I think it may make people feel a certain amount of power to see the ease of how you can give."

Wednesday is World AIDS Day, and many celebrities will stop communicating via Twitter and Facebook. They will not be resuscitated, they say, until their fans donate $1 million.

It’s all part of the latest gambit by the singer-songwriter Alicia Keys to raise money for her charity, Keep a Child Alive, which finances medical care and support services for children and families affected by H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa and India.

When Tim McGraw was a kid, he didn't always know where he'd get his next meal. Those memories are part of the reason he taped public service announcements that begin airing this month to raise awareness of hunger in America.

The charity Feeding America says one in six Americans struggle to find enough food to eat, and approximately 5.7 million people receive emergency food assistance from them on any given week.

The Brady-Audi-Best Buddies connection is part of a world known as cause marketing, an arrangement that allows a corporation to affiliate with a charity and celebrities to burnish its public image and — potentially — boost sales. The charity, in turn, benefits from the exposure and increased marketing power that come from a corporate ally.

The arrangements are especially valuable to companies because research has shown that consumers tend to prefer products with a charity connection.

Two designated charities are already benefiting from the publicity generated by the mock rallies announced by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on their shows in recent weeks. The comedians have told supporters to donate money to help restore the park where the rallies will be held and to buy school supplies for classrooms in their community. So far, they’ve raised a total of $364,000.

LATE last month, tens of thousands of runners who are registered for this year’s New York City Marathon got an e-mail from Mary Wittenberg, the president and chief executive of New York Road Runners.

She implored the runners to join a social networking Web site that Mr. Norton and three partners started in May that she says has the potential to revolutionize charitable giving. It’s called Crowdrise.com.

As part of a new long-term alliance, Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) is gearing up for its next Team Fundraising Challenge by joining forces with one of television's most popular shows, Survivor on CBS. For the first time ever, Survivor will stand up and issue the "Challenge The Odds" Team Challenge with Stand Up To Cancer Ambassador and winner of Survivor: Africa, Ethan Zohn. Zohn, whose Hodgkin's lymphoma is in remission, appeared on CBS News's The Early Show this morning to announce the partnership and his new role as spokesperson for the Survivor team's SU2C fundraising efforts. CBS

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball legend and the NBA's all-time leading scorer, is asking his supporters to join him in taking a shot at beating cancer by joining his team — Team Kareem.

Abdul-Jabbar was diagnosised with Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia. Now, he and Novartis Oncology have partnered with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to create Team Kareem, a national team whose aim is to raise money for cancer research, through participation in LLS's annual Light The Night® Walk.

America’s richest people should commit at least 50 percent of their net worth to charity, three of the nation’s wealthiest citizens said today.

Warren Buffett, who has committed 99 percent of his fortune to charity, along with Bill and Melinda Gates, who have given more than $28-billion to their foundation and say they plan to give a significant portion of their remaining wealth to good causes, issued the pledge.