Posted on March 15, 2010

White House Releases List of Charities That Will Receive President's Nobel Prize Money

Three months after President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Sweden, the White House has released a list of ten charities that will receive a portion of the $1.4 million in prize money that comes with the award.

In October, after he became the third sitting U.S. president to win the award, Obama pledged to donate the prize money to charity, the Washington Post reports. The largest share of the money — $250,000 — will go to Fisher House, an organization that provides housing for families of veterans receiving care at major military and VA medical centers, while the next largest share, $200,000, will go to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

Gifts of $125,000 will be awarded to College Summit, which partners with high schools to strengthen college-going culture and increase college enrollment rates; the Posse Foundation, which provides scholarships to public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who might otherwise be overlooked by traditional college selection processes; the United Negro College Fund; the Hispanic Scholarship Fund; the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation; and the American Indian College Fund. In addition, AfriCare, a group that works to address health, food security, and water resource development needs in Africa, and the Central Asia Institute, which supports community-based education and literacy in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, will each receive $100,000.

"These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans, and countless others in need," said President Obama. "I'm proud to support their work."