Here are the week’s top nonprofit headlines reported elsewhere:

* President Bush says his administration granted $2 billion to religious charities in 2004, an amount a White House official says is the most ever in a single year, The New York Times reported March 2.

* Giving to colleges and universities grew $800 million in 2004 to $24.4 billion, with Harvard and Stanford getting more than $500 million each, The New York Times reported March 3.

* The number of “giving circles,” or groups of donors who pool their charity, has grown to roughly 220 in 29 states in the U.S., BusinessWeek reported in its March 7 edition.

* Faced with growing pressure to be more businesslike and accountable, nonprofits are recruiting more business executives for their boards, the Boston Business Journal reported in its Feb. 25 edition.

* DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, the world’s third-largest law firm, is forming a nonprofit subsidiary, New Perimeter, that will handle only international pro-bono work, with the firm committing 13,000 attorney-hours in the first year at a value of $5 million, the Baltimore Business Journal reported Feb. 28.

* Nonprofits in Pittsburgh that have been asked to contribute $6 million to the city’s budget have named a board to oversee the funding, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported Feb. 24.

* Fidelity investment manager Peter Lynch has turned his attention to philanthropy, which he views as a form of investment, the Boston Globe reported Feb. 27.

* Peter Benenson, the British lawyer and founder of Amnesty International, died Feb. 25, the Los Angeles Times reported Feb. 27.