Times to Cut Grants, Employees to Lose Free Museum Passes

The Times is really feeling the financial heat. We have just seen an email from its Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of the Times Regional Media Group, Michael Golden, informing staff that the New York Times Company Foundation is suspending its grant-making and the matching gifts program. The Boston Globe Foundation will also stop making grants.

The Company Foundation will honor its present commitments, the email says, but staffers should prepare to lose the matching grants the Foundation had been making for their charitable contributions, which will cease next month, and also to lose some of the free passes they've been getting from museums. The New York Times Neediest Cases Campaign and The Globe Santa program are unaffected.

Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. appeared at a shareholders' meeting this morning and said the company was not planning to go private, but would look at pay models to shore up its declining revenues. Photo (cc) Joe Schlabotnik.