Not much happened last week on the Crystal Bridges front. The museum unveiled a new website for its temporary facilty, Crystal Bridges at the Massey, an exhibition space in downtown Bentonville that has housed a collection of Walden Pond photographs by Scot Miller. Meanwhile, the Irish Independent published a profile of the museum and of Alice Walton. None of it’s new—the best recent biography was published some time ago by the Kansas City Star, although I can’t seem to find it online anymore—but it is a nice summary of the Crystal Bridges—Fisk University—Georgia O’Keefe Museum love triangle that is currently working its way through the art papers and the courts.

Most interesting is this roundup by the Arkansas Times of Arkansas’ philanthropies. The Walton Foundation is likely the second-richest philanthropy in the world now, assuming that Helen Walton (Sam’s widow, who died in April) left most of her assets to it. (FYI, if you’ve got a cause in Arkansas, it’s a good time to apply for a grant.) In 2006, Crystal Bridges received $10mn from the foundation, but what’s interesting is that it’s an overview of foundation giving in the state. I don’t think Iowa has any publications that publish similar stories, not even the Des Moines Register, although there is ample need for it. Just this year the Wellmark Foundation, charitable arm of the primary Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance company in Iowa, tried to buy the name of the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health, an effort that was championed by Marvin Pomerantz, whose own philanthropy in the state is significant. That particular story was well-covered because it was controversial, but most foundation giving is ordinary and mostly uncontroversial. That doesn’t make it not news. A similar overview of major charities as the Arkansas Times supplies to Arkansas could only benefit the state.